The Hollow Men
by MJP
Summary: [Ch. 17 up!] During the Cold War, the clash of the two superpowers and their unending feud kept the world's eyes wide in fear. Through their animosity came the weapon known as the Arm Slave, and the efforts of MITHRIL to prevent its rise...
1. Shape Without Form, Shade Without Color

**A/N**: I got big into FMP! after seeing the first episode. Any series that has a character like Shinji instantly wraps me up and draws me in. Otaku rule in anime, but Shinji is EXACTLY like I was when I was a lot younger. I too had Jane's identification guides that I read for fun. Now I'm older, I've seen the entire series, and I'm no longer a military otaku, but I can still remember so much of it. I was born in '82, so I don't really remember the Cold War, but I studied it intensely.

There's a lot of FMP! fic out there. It's hard to compete. But one thing I've noticed about the fanfic: it deals with Sosuke and Kaname. Nobody has yet speculated onto how a modern world has had the Soviet Union, DVD-RW drives (How else could Gauron have gotten that research data?), and Arm Slaves came to coexist.

I've toyed with the idea of a historical fanfic for FMP! before, but I've never felt competent enough to try it. It's taken me a while to really think about the backstory and how things came to be in that parallel world. This is my attempt at that project. I apologize to cultnirvana, Anysia, Lakewood, and especially Teriyaki Chicken; of all the fanfic writers out there, I respect you all very much. I can only hope to aspire to 1/4th of your talents on a good day.

All terms, country names, installations, and localities are completely accurate and either did or do exist as far as I can research them. Any original exceptions to this will be clarified in after-chapter A/Ns.

Reviews and comments are welcome! I appreciate all criticism, positive, constructive, or just ranting. My real passion is Comic Party fanfic, so this is a whole new venture for me.

I hope this doesn't fall behind in terms of updates, but I also hope I can make this work. Every character is original, I do not own Full Metal Panic! and I accept no profits for my work. That said, sit back, relax, and enjoy.

* * *

**Opening: "The Hollow Men" by T.S. Eliot, first canto**

"We are the hollow men  
We are the stuffed men  
Leaning together  
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!  
Our dried voices, when  
We whisper together  
Are quiet and meaningless  
As wind in dry grass  
Or rats' feet over broken glass  
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,  
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed  
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom  
Remember us -- if at all -- not as lost  
Violent souls, but only  
As the hollow men  
The stuffed men."

* * *

**The Hollow Men**

* * *

_**Prologue: Shape Without Form, Shade Without Color**_

* * *

**June 14th, 1964  
Arzamas-16 Laboratory/All-Russian Scientific and Research Institute of Experimental Physics  
Approximately 400km east of Moscow, Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic  
3:47 PM**

The "clean room" was as hermetically sealed as physics could allow. Triple airlocks purged the air, chemically sterilized the remaining vacuum, purged the sterilizing agents, and bombarded the entryway with reactive neutrons in each chamber, which then were soaked up by the heavy lead walls and floor. Fortunately for the scientists working there, the reactive neutrons were introduced only after they had left the airlocks. Unfortunately for anything else besides the scientists, the isotope of cesium that was used had a tendency to instantly attack the DNA structures of inorganic and organic matter on a molecular level. Literally, no living molecule left inside would survive for long.

The airlocks then led into the oxygen-free clean room complex with absolutely no air ventilation or emergency systems. A near-space suit was the required fashion in the clean room; everyone carried a nine-hour supply of nitrox; pure oxygen having fallen out of favor for its expense and bulk. Moreover, the rather polluted air of the Nizhny Novgorod region had the scientists wanting to spend too much time in the pure air of the suits.

Indeed, the space-like environment led Gregor Hayamovich Rachenkov to think back to his last job.

_Baikonur had better food supplies,_ the physicist sighed. He wanted desperately for the visor of his pressure suit to fog up, but the regulated temperature and no-fog lens kept him clearly focused on the silicon board in front of him on a work table. _Better food supplies and steady electricity. Those damnable cosmonauts get the royal treatment in our wonderfully equal society. Sometimes I miss even just the assembling and programming of rocket gyroscopes.  
_

Most of the scientists struggled with the soldering iron through the insulated gloves of their pressure suits, adopting an awkward two-handed grasp on the tool. This forced the scientists to work in teams, one holding down the thin, flat circuit solder plates and transistors and one performing the actual soldering. They didn't fear grasping the hot iron, thanks to their suits, but the process was greatly inefficient. Rachenkov, though, wielded the soldering iron like an extension of his arm, deftly working with the dual-transistor chips on the printed circuit board.

"Rachenkov, board 14-27, section A, complete," he pulled the new microphone down from an overhead arm and brought it to the front of his visor to speak. In front of him, a hissing noise emerged from a metal hatch as the receiving system went through its own triple airlock. The hatch flipped down cleanly, having none of the perpetual squeaks and unpolished edges that marked the pinnacles of Soviet engineering. A plastic tray emerged, and Rachenkov placed the circuit board gingerly onto the tray. Automatically, the tray slid back into the hatch, which slid closed behind it.

"Moving to assembly area," Rachenkov again spoke into the microphone, returning the soldering iron to its cradle and flipping a small red switch on the nearest wall. The switch killed all power to the room; the need to install electrical outlets caused an unacceptable introduction of electromagnetic radiation and dust hazards. Every single device in the room was hardwired directly into the wall. Normally, a scientist would use each device's individual switch, but this Radio Shack soldering iron was obtained at great difficulty from the West. It was far more effective than the irons made at whichever massive central factory manufactured them for the Soviet Union and export. It had no such switch, since those were very prone to failure.

"Comrade Rachenkov cleared to assembly area," a voice yelled as loud as it could through a pressure suit. The lab supervisor, Valery Borisovich Solov, had just come through the entry airlock. Rachenkov stepped through the plastic sheets that separated his work area from the rest of the lab, passing through the auxiliary board fabrication facility on his way to the central assembly area.

"Fantastic work, comrade," Solov clapped Rachenkov on the shoulder. "Boris Georgievich told me about how you had 10-27 done not only four hours ago."

"It was nothing, comrade Solov," Rachenkov shook his head, trying to mask his scratchy voice. It grew worse every day, a minor shame of his from his younger years in places far less clean than Arzamas-16. "Just a matter of proper dedication."

"Proper dedication is not merely working through your lunch break every day, Gregor Hayamovich," Solov made a tut-tut-tut motion with his finger. "You didn't show up in the cafeteria."

_Stop calling me that. _

"I wasn't very hungry. The layout required a lot of focus and it was just a matter of concentration. By the time I was finished, I noticed that lunch was over."

"Gregor Hayamovich," Solov walked with Rachenkov through the sparse white halls of the facility. "The _rodina_ has invested a great deal in you. Please, keep up your health. It is a necessity to maintain your well-being. Keep in mind that many collective farmers have toiled and grown their crops with their own sweat, keeping it healthy and robust for our country. Would you deny them their selfless efforts in the advancement of the goals of socialism?"

_How dare you invoke my father's name. "Gregor Hayamovich," indeed. His name was **not **some bastardized Russification, you apparatchik fool._

"Of course not, comrade Solov," Rachenkov shook his head, clearing his throat. "I would never pass up the beets in our cafeteria voluntarily. They are only now just becoming sweeter than even this winter's crop."

"Indeed they are, comrade. Indeed they are." Solov raised a hand to a similarly pressure-suited guard, whose bulk and imposing glare seemed comically hidden under the protective gear. "Solov, A-14-W2, and..." he tossed his head towards Rachenkov.

"Rachenkov, D-21-A7."

"Entering assembly lab," Solov finished with a nod.

"Solov, A-14-W2 and Rachenkov, D-21-A7, entering at 1550 hours, exiting 1555 hours," the guard pronounced into a microphone similar to Rachenkov's. The guard held up a plastic card with a series of holes punched into it; Solov held up a similar card. They each walked to opposite ends of the hall, skewed apart by a few feet's length. Simultaneously, they inserted and removed the key cards. An alarm bell tolled three harsh rings, and a pair of white metal doors slowly motored open, noiselessly and smoothly.

_Welcome to the Dollhouse,_ Rachenkov bit his lower lip. Entering here was always a torturous process. Exiting always required him to leave something deep within him behind.

The doors led to a darkened room, with portable red lights illuminating objects that would obstruct one's path. Wrenches with half-meter long arms, screwdrivers with heads that even Rachenkov didn't recognize, and hammers that looked like an Olympic weightlifter would have trouble hefting littered the floor, amongst other unrecognizable tools and devices. A squeaking sound—un-oiled caster wheels—echoed along with an agonizingly steady _drip... drip... drip... drip_ sound.

_This would be worse than Chinese water torture to endure for long,_ Rachenkov thought as he and Solov went forward through the macabre tool box. It seemed to go on forever, with walls that couldn't be seen by the two men and had no illumination from the lights. There were constant fumbles and small collisions as they negotiated the tricky path.

"We're one crucial step closer to completion with the board you just completed," Solov attempted to make conversation with the older engineer. "The programming should be done even as we speak."

"Indeed? I had thought that the Alignment Section still needed to fabricate the rings and bearingless motors."

"Already done. We have little means to power them, and we'll have to conclude our assembly and testing at the new Chernobyl nuclear facility, still under construction. Even so, we'll be conducting a very brief experiment of the entire system next week."

_The entire thing? So soon?_

"Are we that far along?"

"Like I said, comrade, the _rodina_ has invested much in you and your comrades here and elsewhere."

"Amazing." _How much of that 'investment' could feed children, buy grain from the West? Even I know that those damn sickly things we eat in the cafeteria are the best that can be offered during this drought. Yet Krushchev still won't buy foreign wheat even if it's offered..._

"Here we are," Solov remarked as the squeaking and dripping grew more present. "You should be proud of all your progress, comrade."

"I serve the _rodina,_" Rachenkov replied almost robotically, choking back the rising nausea he always felt upon entering the room.

The source of the squeaking was a series of carts holding more strange tools, wireless soldering irons, a small welding kit, and all the sundry supplies needed to keep work going. Manipulating them was a girl with thin, almond-shaped eyes that flitted about constantly as she reached for tools, gear, and circuit boards.

She moved like lightning, supported by the unknown chemicals and nutrients that fed into an IV tube in her upper right arm. There were no bags supplying the IV, merely tubes that fed in right from the ceiling and were mounted on tracks to move about the ceiling of the assembly area. Clad only in a thin, sterile hospital gown, Rachenkov could easily see the outline of her ribcage as the slitted sides of the garment fell open. He had to constantly alter his gaze to avoid any undue glimpses at her breasts; she never made a move to cover herself or shrink further into the gown.

_I am surprised they even considered you human enough to clothe with that, dear Natalya._

"Natalya" was only the name given to the girl by the science staff. Nobody knew who she really was, but the tone of her skin and the distinct shape of her eyes clearly marked her of Asian descent. Her deft, quick movements were carried on without her even pulling her gaze from the complex mass of circuitry, wires, and electronic devices contained in a large, awkward-looking steel box in front of her.

"There, comrade!" Solov exclaimed loudly as a hissing noise emanated from the wall. "There is your contribution, just before our eyes." He didn't bother to lower her voice, nor did Natalya bother to notice them.

"A wonder, these _Shepatavshiy_," Rachenkov commented rather bluntly, not bothering to hide the grit from his voice. He cleared his throat once again.

The hissing faded, punctuated by a momentarily invisible hatch opening in the wall. Working a screwdriver with her left hand, Natalya simply reached over and grabbed the circuit board from the hatch tray. She plugged it into a component in the box, still turning the screw in her left hand, reaching for a red-hot soldering iron with her right.

The _hisssss_ of burning flesh caused both Rachenkov and Solov to flinch a little. Neither of the men could tell if there was any smoke from the burn or any reaction from the girl; she flipped the iron around, grasping it like a dagger, and jammed it into the depths of the box. The harsh, animal-like movements caused Rachenkov to bite his lower lip again; not out of nausea, but out of fear that she would damage some vital component.

The girl—the "_Shepatavshiy_"—flipped the iron back around, placing it back in its stand, then focused both her hands onto wielding two screwdrivers. Tirelessly, she twisted and turned the box, receiving another circuit board a moment later from the hissing hatch.

"She's been like this for the past eight weeks," Solov remarked, patting Rachenkov on the back and turning him around. "Come, comrade, our time here is almost up. We would not want to have comrade Druzov out there come in after us. He is far from gentle in dealing with breaches."

_Eight weeks,_ he thought. _This poor thing has been drugged and fed intravenously for the past eight weeks. Such talents and intelligence turned into such a robot. What has become of her parents? Has she no lover, have there been no worries? Are we to assume that the rodina has made her into such a tool for its own purposes? To think that she is being wasted away like this..._

**Arzamas-16 Residential Facility  
****11:30 PM**

Despite the early summer, it was still frigid outside of the laboratory dorms. Most of the scientists, workers, soldiers, and administrators were inside, sleeping or huddled together over homebrew vodka. Guards were on duty at the access roads and guard towers, but other than that, the facility was largely secure for the night.

Rachenkov was outside, coughing over a cigarette. He hated the things; normally, he wouldn't touch them unless his life depended on it, yet outside of the clean room, he always had an open pack of cigarettes within easy reach.

_If only this throat of mine could have been from cancer,_ Rachenkov pretended to take a drag and coughed as the smoke billowed up in his cheeks. The quality of the tobacco had dropped off; even less-casual smokers noted that the finer Cuban tobacco had been replaced with garbage grown in the Baltics.

Rachenkov rubbed his throat, feeling the scar where a German bayonet had grazed him so many years ago. He felt himself fortunate to be liberated from Theresienstadt with only a bayonet to the throat, the last desperate hostage attempt of an SS trooper. He remembered the moments as the Soviet soldiers shouted at him, blaring Russian at a man who spoke none of it.

"Back off!" the SS soldier had yelled in German. "Back off or I will slaughter him right now!"

The crack of a rifle had silenced the man, whose backward fall had cut far enough into Rachenkov's voice box to permanently affect his speech. The fortunate actions of corpsmen had saved his life, but not his speaking. Unfortunately, nothing could save him from being on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain.

"A cold night, isn't it?"

Rachenkov didn't flinch from the sudden voice behind him, speaking literate Russian with an accent of Leningrad. "It was worse in Terezin," he replied.

"Do you still have family there?"

"Taken to Auschwitz."

_The Soviets still think they went to Bergen-Belsen. No, they did not go to labor. They went to die._

"I had family in Holland when they came," the voice broke off from the code pattern. Rachenkov pretended to re-light his cigarette, flicking his lighter at waist level. This would make it difficult for any guards to see the hand slipping into his pocket. "I am thankful for the liberation, but there is much left to be ascribed."

"I have seen what they did to other Jews," Gregor Hayamovich Rachenkov—formerly Gregor Rachenberg, son of Chaim Rachenberg—rubbed the tattoo on his wrist, the number 37424, with a Star of David crudely preceding it. "I was lucky." He coughed violently, doubling over as the man beside him patted him on the back.

"Are you all right?"

"I couldn't be all right even if I wanted to."

"What made you miss the last rendezvous?"

"Acceleration to the program. They're putting us in on a new gyroscope design for future mass-production."

"A gyroscope?"

"You might have heard of that miserable failure, the Shagohod. That was only semi-walking, and horribly impractical. This gyroscope is smaller, but it requires lots of power to operate and align. Theoretically, it can balance a truly walking tank, and when the power sources can be properly miniaturized, it can be reduced in size from a colossus to a much smaller, more portable design."

"So they're going tactical..."

"You'll see everything when you get back."

"Do you need anything?"

Rachenkov thought for a moment. "When you come back... bring me a proper dress."

"A _what?_"

"A dress. Something that would look good on an Asian girl."

The voice fell silent for a moment.

"I saw her again today."

"That girl..."

"He said she was a '_Shepatavshiy_.'"

"'Whispered?'" the unknown man asked in English.

"_Da._ When she still spoke, Solov said that she spoke of voices whispering to her, telling her how to build the machines that we now work towards. The entire effort is her child. She wears nothing but a hospital gown. I think she deserves a proper dress." Rachenkov stepped on the cigarette.

"You're quite the gentleman."

"She is little more than skin and bones, and she will never grow back after what they have done to her. Let her at least live out in dignity."

There was no response. Rachenkov turned, but the man was already gone.

**June 17th, 1964  
Haneda International Airport Tokyo, Japan  
9:45 AM**

The tall, trim Asian man never got tired of the diplomatic passport that he had been issued. The airport, not even five years old at this point, still sparkled like a new car, but its luster was dulled by the flock of gray and navy-blue suits that walked through the halls of the terminal. Like Moses' staff, the passport parted the flocks of salarymen at the check-in. He didn't have any baggage to check, just the leather attaché case handcuffed to his arm. Nobody could legally touch him, but if they did, the forced opening of the case would immediately trigger a powerful explosive charge, incinerating the contents of the case. Anyone nearby would easily feel the effects, but the information inside the case was often considered more important than the lives of the carrier or any innocent bystanders.

"We hope you enjoyed your trip, Mr. Chan," a ticket agent at the Qantas gate bowed to him.

"My pleasure," Chan bowed back, keeping his Australian accent under control, as always.

"Mr. Chan's" flight to Sydney lifted off right on schedule. He sipped at a chardonnay from a Queensland winery as he sat back in his first-class seat. The scent of cigarette smoke drifting in from the smoking section of the plane jogged his memory back to the Minox film he had developed not hours ago, and the smoking man who had given it to him.

The photos contained an image that "Mr. Chan" found profoundly disturbing. Aside from the covertly-obtained pictures of documentation and a strange device that looked like the lower half of a robot from a late-50s sci-fi film, he remembered the frightening image.

_"She is little more than skin and bones, and she will never grow back after what they have done to her. Let her at least live out in dignity."_

"'Shepatavshiy,'" "Mr. Chan" said out loud to the empty seat near him, not really expecting a response. "'Whispered.'"

**To be continued...**

**A/N and cultural notes: **_Rodina_ means "motherland" in Russian. I preserved the name for period integrity.

The Russian naming system has casual acquaintances and friends referring to each other (in the case of men) by their given name and their father's name. "Mikhail Borisovich" would be "Michael, son of Boris." Women have the same thing with the mother's name.

I hope the MGS3 reference doesn't go unnoticed.


	2. Rats' Feet Over Broken Glass

**A/N: **Many thanks to cultnirvana and Hang Tuah for leaving reviews; I'm happy to have reached anyone with this, but I'm glad that people are enjoying it so far. I hope to keep it enjoyable.

Due to the highly favorable and rapid response, I pulled my ideas up and out and got chapter 1 up and running. This may detract from my Comic Party fanfic (Which, by the way, I urge you all to check out!) but I think it's worth it.

A bit of the language, but this story is PG-13 for a reason. Nothing worse than what's found on cable.

As before, all locations and organizations (Except for MITHRIL) are real, all science is real, and the technology... I'll leave to the reader what technology is real and what is in the realm of fiction.

On with the show!

* * *

_**1: Rats' Feet over Broken Glass**_

* * *

**August 15th, 1981  
Woomera Prohibited Area  
800km northeast of Adelaide, South Australia  
12:22 PM local time**

It seemed like the most isolated place on earth to the people who lived, worked, and shuttled in and out of the deserted outpost. The mix of American, Canadian, British, and Australian technicians, analysts, and military officers would gather for what they jokingly referred to as "footie on Mars," kicking a soccer ball around the red oxidized desert sands of the base.

Major Aaron Klein, US Air Force, a stereotypical Iowa farmboy by birth and upbringing, had quickly taken to the laid-back companionship around Woomera shortly after his short-haul transport flight from Alice Springs had opened its cargo door. In with a fresh staff rotation, he made up the "new blood" of signals and telemetry intelligence that was firming up a fresh facility. Of course, his Aussie and Brit friends had quickly schooled him in more "proper" sports.

"'ere's yours, mate!" a tall blond Australian Secret Intelligence Service analyst reared back and delivered a vicious kick at close range after eluding a defenseman.

"No chance!" Klein dove to intercept the ball, barely grabbing it by his fingertips; he succeeded in keeping it out of the hastily-erected net, consisting of broomsticks and a crude set of twine knots.

"C'mon, mate, yer bein' brutal to us heah!" the Aussie joked. "Gonna get too big for yah britches an' yer welcome, eh?"

Klein dusted the red dust off his side as the rest of the soccer players seemed to stop running around, instead stretching and engaging in the standard post-game banter. "I couldn't do any less," the tall, lean officer tossed his sandy, military-parted hair back. It was stringed with sweat—nothing less could be expected from the south-central Australian desert—but it still had the recruiting-poster chic that had so many hearts yearning during his tenure at the Academy. "Besides, we've got an audience today."

Klein pointed over his shoulder with a thumb; not too far beyond his goal was a small red kangaroo, one of a small mob that made their way around the base perimeter. There was no need for a security fence; the arid desert would quickly take care of any intruder on the surface. The local wildlife was sparse, but they interacted well enough with the Woomera staff.

"That's yer Lana, right?" the Aussie joked.

"Hah. Sweet lil' redheaded Lana from back home," Klein chuckled, letting his Midwestern drawl creep a little into his voice.

"Back on shift soon, mate?"

"Yeah, RAF pulled down some telemetry from the latest missile test out of Cheltenham, of all places. The goddamn Reds decided to fire a test shot out over the North Sea this time."

"Bugger! That far west?"

"Better believe it. You won't believe the numbers we got..."

The red kangaroo shuffled a little bit around the goal, foraging for Nullarbor grass. It found a little bit in the shade of a wrinkled, dying desert shrub; as it bent down to chew on the grass, a joey kangaroo peeped its way out of the pouch of the bigger 'roo. It peered at the Australian and the Air Force major, apparently very interested in their interaction.

The mama kangaroo finished noshing and shuffled off a ways before rapidly hopping away in the patent style of kangaroos. She hopped continuously northeast, clearing kilometer after kilometer with a precision and endurance uncommon to the common red kangaroo. Eventually, as the sun drew higher in the desert sky, she made her way to another lone, dying bush, far away from the Woomera base complex.

The kangaroo bent down again, as if to seek more Nullarbor, but this time, the joey hopped out of the mother's pouch and touched its nose to the mother's.

As the joey's tail pounded out a rhythmic, undulating, almost random wagging beat, one of the main earth-station satellite dishes that shadowed the kangaroos Woomera changed its skyward direction. The low hum of the motors echoed over the two kangaroos as it moved into a new position.

None of the seismic sensors, geared to listen for intruders in heavy vehicles, could pick up the Morse code letters that the joey kangaroo was methodically beating into the shadow of the bush. The Hollywood studio staff who had built the mechanical kangaroo team hadn't understood the need for such precision, but the data recording systems in the mama 'roo had already compressed and encoded the conversations of the technicians into a series of three-letter Morse code groups.

The bush dutifully recorded the Morse groups as the Joey thumped them out, stored them in its ten-kilobyte memory banks, and waited for the upcoming satellite downlink on the same frequency that Woomera technicians had just programmed in to the earth-station dish. One of its twigs had already turned imperceptibly into the branch, creating a very crude single sideband directional satellite transciever.

**Hyde Park, Sydney, Australia  
****6:30 PM**

_Why are there never pigeons here?_

He drifted from one graceful tai chi position to the next, alone in a shady corner of the park. Despite the sounds of traffic, despite the chirp of birds, he found that the large coolibah tree gave off a spiritual enough feel to cancel out the sound.

_I see pigeons in every park, yet there are never any here. It's almost as if they sense the solemnity._

_Baihei liangchi becomes loxi aobu. Shouhui pipa into daojuan qung. No pigeons. I miss them._

One position flowed into another as he went through his routine. Only a few tourists leaving the nearby war memorial disturbed him with their footsteps. Though his eyes were closed, he could feel their curiosity. He was used to it.

_Danbian. Yunshou. Danbian. "Let silent contemplation be your offering." The inscription on the pedastal of the statue of Sacrifice inside the memorial. No noise even from the pigeons. I can tell. It's the spirit of this place that keeps them away._

Beyond the coolibah, the cold concrete edifice of the Anzac War Memorial paid homage to the countless Australians and New Zealanders who had died in World War I. A sacrifice of more than 1/12th the population of the two nations was memorialized not far from the stocky, muscular Asian man practicing tai chi.

_Haidizhen. Shan tong bei. Almost done._

Another set of footsteps didn't continue past him as the others did; this set rustling in the ground.

_Shuzishou. Shoushi. Finished._

"Fi-nally!"

The high-pitched voice didn't stir Kenji Moriyama one bit as he went through some cool-down stretches.

"Yo, man, you listenin' to me?" The tall black man got up from the bench where he was sitting, adjusting his wide-lapelled denim jacket with a flourish. "We got the goods, bro, and you owe me on our bet!"

"I'm listening," Kenji replied, lowering himself into a hurdler's stretch. The black man averted his gaze; it looked outright painful to sink so low to the ground. Kenji could really _stretch._

"Just came down from HQ. I _told_ you, man, I _told_ you! Did I not _tell_ you we'd be facin' this down?"

"Mark, tell me what's going on." Kenji stood up, drawing himself to his full five-foot-six height. Barely impressive compared to his six-foot-four companion, Kenji's fireplug build stood out nonetheless. He looked like he was more prone to bench-press several hundred pounds than to run a marathon.

"No finesse, my man, absolutely no finesse!" Curtis "Mark" Marqata replied. He reached into his jacket, pulling out a plan manila folder and pretending to use it to comb his bushy afro haircut.

"Will you stop doing that in public?" Kenji sighed, rolling his eyes.

"Yo, man, nothin' to worry about. No tough stuff this time." Mark opened the folder, grinning like a maniac, pretending to hold it out like a restaurant menu. Kenji took it.

"Test launch data, telemetry recordings, a phone call from the commander of the Moscow Military District to his mistress... and his mistress' daughter..." Kenji raised an eyebrow. "Nothing other than the old standards. Tell me why I owe you a beer over info like this, Mark."

"Oh, I'll tell you why," Mark flipped the photos to another shot. "Take a look at this one, my brotha."

**August 27th, 1981  
United States Army National Training Center  
Fort Irwin, California  
7:45 AM local time**

"Target tank, one o'clock!"

"Nine hundred!"

"SAY-bo! Shoot!"

"Sabot UP!"

The tank crew had the metal-backed target identified, targeted, and under fire in less than five seconds. It was the training and skill of a professional tank crew, yet Kenji and Mark—disguised as colonels—still flinched from the sound of the Rheinmetall cannon. It took a full two seconds to reach them at the distance of the observation post of the range.

"Advance to phase line bravo!" the command went out over the radio. Mark pretended to take notes over the crackle of the radio mounted on the observers' deck.

"Summarize the scenario for us, lieutenant," Kenji commanded the fresh-faced officer behind him.

"Sir!" the lieutenant shouted. "This scenario is classified top secret, no foreign nationals disclosable. I am required to inform you of the ramifications of the Espionage Laws governing the—"

"The colonel asked you for a summary, lieutenant, not an essay!" Mark snapped like an ex-drill sergeant.

"Sir! Yes, sir! This scenario is code-named LEAPING LIZARD, simulating tactical data of a human-shaped target of an approximate height of twenty-seven point two four feet, comprising a mass of no less than eighty tons. All mobility guidelines have been provided by colonel Leiber of Fifteenth Corps command! Sir!" The lieutenant couldn't have been a year out of ROTC with a response like that.

Kenji nodded. "Proceed with the exercise."

The lieutenant saluted, which the two men smartly returned. "Activate anomalous target," he spoke into a separate radio transmitter, keyed into the exercise command office.

"Roger. Tickling the lizard."

With that, the radio patched in to the tank crackled again. All three men raised individual pairs of binoculars to their eyes as another crude silhouette target snapped up. It had a squat, rounded appearance to it, like a bottle of pills on stout, linear legs.

"Target... target unknown, four o'clock!" the tank commander called out, a question mark on his voice.

"Eight... no, four—seven hundred!" the gunner had called out the estimated range, a quick application of trigonometry. He had been fooled initially by the silhouette; it looked far too human to calculate accurately. He knew he would take a good berating for having to rely on the laser-assisted aiming computer.

"SAYbo!"

"Sabot UP!"

The tank cannon fired again, but the silhouette had already flipped downwards. The bright tracer on the 120mm round flew harmlessly into the distance, eventually arcing back down into the sand of the firing range.

"Miss!" the gunner called out.

"Re-target! SAYbo!" the commander replied.

"Target at... target at 12 o'clock, six hundred!" The gunner hadn't even bothered to take a manual aim this time.

"Sabot UP!" the loader called out.

Again the tank fired, its speed up to an even forty miles per hour, fairly dashing across the desert. Again the silhouette dropped down, unhit.

"Target at nine o'clock, _four_ hundred!"

"Sabot UP!"

"SHOOT! Kill that damn thing already!"

Just as the tank fired, a stream of paint bullets flooded the tank, fairly turning its left side blood-red.

"Exercise concluded," the radio circuits crackled. "Buffalo Six, RTB, acknowledge."

"Buffalo, this is Six. Permission to ask what the _fuck_ that was!" the tank commander radioed back.

"Six, this is Buffalo," a gruff commander's voice got on the line. "Permission is _denied._ Return to base _immediately._ Acknowledge."

"Six is RTB!" the commander shouted back. "Six out!"

The lieutenant turned to the faux colonels. "That's all we've got to work with, sir. Is there anything else I can show you?"

"That's fine. Thank you, lieutenant," Kenji nodded. He turned to Mark, who was still scribbling notes. "Do you need any more information, Bill?"

"Not a thing, Sammy," Mark flipped his pad closed. "We'll see ourselves out, lieutenant. I expect all records of this exercise destroyed."

"Yes, sir!" the lieutenant saluted. It was again returned as the two men made their way down the stairs of the observation tower.

"What did I tell you?" Mark said as they climbed into their borrowed jeep. "We've been chasin' the mofo down for ages, and they've gotta have had at least one at some point."

Kenji nodded. "I remember seeing the old photos that REFUSENIK sent. I wish I knew what the hell they were working on, but it's bad enough with those capabilities that we've heard rumors about."

Mark handed over his small notepad as he started the jeep and shifted it into gear. "Judge for yourself," he said over the din of the engine, "but if my math ain't faded since that masters' I got sayin' I do math pretty damn well, those movements put it at about at least four times faster than a tank in any direction."

Kenji flipped through Mark's notes, scrutinizing the rough angular drawings. "Hmm. Seven hundred meters at 120 degrees to six hundred at zero degrees... then four hundred meters at 270 degrees. All in less than ninety seconds. Must be hell on the pilot."

"Yeah. Hell indeed. The g-forces alone oughta kill the poor fool."

"Gotta love the Russians and their views on human rights."

"_Dosvidanya, rodina!"_ Mark joked.

"So what now?"

"We check in."

"Yeah, let's do just that. But where?"

"Think they'll mind if we take this into town?" Mark patted the steering wheel of the jeep.

"It's better than that rental we got. Jacobs'll be pissed."

The two men looked at each other for a moment.

"Let's take the jeep," they both responded simultaneously.

**Sydney, Australia  
Eighteen hours later**

"Why does this come to me first..." the photo analyst moaned to his department head.

The department head patted the analyst on the shoulder. "I know. We all have to deal with Mark's handwriting at some point."

"But _this!_" The analyst gestured to the blown-up photo of Mark's notes. The scrawl was infamous around MITHRIL's Pacific headquarters for its illegibility. "You want me to decode the 216-letter True Name of God next?"

"Some of us had the good fortune to be stuck on the late shift when this came in," the manager laughed. "Besides, it's got a Gamma flag on it. That means it's hot."

"I'll get on it..." _Give me a shadow and I can tell you how tall a missile gantry is on a cloudy day. Give me a blur and I'll sharpen it. I'll beat the damn Cray supercomputers at image-enhancement even when I haven't had my coffee. But nobody can read Marqata's writing._

"Intrusion access to DOD systems successfully penetrated on 8/26," the analyst read off as he peered through a microscope at a copy of the photo, moving it with his left hand. His right hand transcribed notes from Mark's scanned pictures. "Created surprise test orders under new personnel entry: Colonel Robison Leiber, XV Corps Training Command, transmitted through Pentagon Communications Room 4-B at 2330 hours. Arrived onsite at commencement of exercise. All resources had been constructed. All records were destroyed. Simulation of tactical capabilities of Leapfrog Project confirmed. Forward to Sachar. End message."

"Okay, you heard what he said," the department head shrugged. "I wonder why it came through us and not Communications."

"They sent this over the Redwood System," the analyst sighed. "Here, look at the original data." He held up what looked like a ream of dot-matrix printouts, littered with zeroes and ones. "Marqata wanted to show off their spiffy new computer thing, so he took a picture of his notes and sent it right to us."

The manager whistled a low, impressed whistle. "You mean this wasn't developed?"

"Chief, they're working on ways to send images without using film. This time, they took that backpack-size image scanner and converted it into a file. If they sent it to us over a floppy disk, I'd be able to do this a lot quicker, but they sent it over a damn _phone line!_" The photo analyst was visibly perturbed. "Do you know how huge of a security hole that is!"

"Yeah, that's pretty big." The department head was well aware of the fact that there was more than one Redwood System link operating elsewhere. He didn't have the heart—or the shared security clearance—to tell the analyst that a lot more images like Mark's would be coming in over the heavily-secured network of computer bulletin board systems that could be found by anyone with a few thousand dollars' worth of computer gear and enough time on their hands. "Good work tonight. You want some coffee?"

"No, thanks, I'm too stressed and I have to work on the latest round of Russian test launches."

"Anything fun?"

"The SS-18 is already rolling out and into the field. We can't do anything about that one now. Another weapons program out in the world."

"Yeah, a party all around." The department head picked up the notes that the analyst had transcribed. "Mind if I make a copy of these?"

"Sure, go ahead."

The department manager carried the notes into his office, matching the Gamma prefix against the list of existing contact projects. Only a handful of high-level raw data would ever go straight to General Sachar, head of the Intelligence Branch of MITHRIL's Pacific Headquarters. He raised his eyebrows when he uncovered the thin file marked with 'LEAPFROG PROJECT' in typewritten letters.

"General? This is Bryce down in the lab. We have you as primary contact for the Leapfrog Project?"

Bryce listened for a moment. "They created a fake entry in the Pentagon computers and dispatched it that way... yes, sir, we just got the info. Yes, sir, right away."

A few floors up, General Andrew Sachar set down the black telephone on his desk and rubbed his thin, stretched face. Dulled from too much time spent behind a desk and away from his old Australian Special Air Service squad, he could almost feel the beginning of jowls forming on his cheeks. MITHRIL was a particularly unique challenge to handle; his budget was quite high and his reach equally broad, but the extended intelligence net he cast usually gave an extended catch of intelligence information.

"It's really out there..." he said, his pronounced Aussie accent highly moderated by the disciplined voice of a special forces commander. "After REFUSENIK went off on a limb like he did, setting the entire thing back... they managed to bring in another one to work on the project."

General Sachar pressed an intercom button on his desk. "Global," a gruff voice on the other end of the line immediately responded.

"This is Sachar at Pac. Relay a message to the Commander for me: 'the tadpole is growing legs.' Message ends."

"Will do, general," the line clicked with a disconnection.

_A whole new revolution in military affairs will spring up if this makes the field,_ Sachar prefaced a quick report off to MITHRIL Global Command Headquarters. It detailed the contact report from the photo analysis labs, and he accepted the notes that his secretary handed him. He made some fast highlights, including approximations on the unit's capabilities, and attached them to his report. One last thing remained.

_I cannot help but urge action on this project,_ he wrote, removing the detached air that an intelligence update would normally carry. _A valuable operative asked, and received, a suicide mission to prevent what we now face from ever coming into fruition. One Whispered was already lost to the Soviets, and to deny them her abilities, that operative—among our most well-placed—lost his own life as well. We still suffer from the fact that he managed to kill that girl in Arzamas and die in his escape attempt, more so from the fact that NAPA VALLEY is still at large. Again, the Leapfrog Project has emerged and appears to have been feasible enough to risk a direct intrusion and force simulation into America's military structure. The data I am sending proves that we are dealing with a threat more unbalancing than our failure to prevent the Shagohod from leaking out, or indeed the first nuclear arms race itself. If MITHRIL does not balance or eliminate the Leapfrog Project, the world stands to become a far more dangerous place within the superpower context alone. _

_Sachar, West Pac Intel_

"Jennie?" he called out, stepping outside of his office. "Can you put this through on the wire for me?"

"Sure thing, general," his half-Irish night secretary responded with her trademark charming lilt.

"I still don't trust that bloody thing," the general grunted as his secretary stepped up to the still-new-smelling fax machine. "It looks like it'll shred the papers."

"We do that anyway, though, sir," Jennie replied quizzically.

Sachar grinned. "Don't let it do that first, love."

"Of course not," she laughed softly.

**University of California Los Angeles  
****Computer Network Facility  
****11:32 PM local time**

"They should have gotten it by now," Mark shut down the remote terminal, its green monochrome screen slowly fading out.

"I hate going in forcibly like this," Kenji tossed his head in the direction of the two bound, gagged, and blindfolded students in the corner. "It's too damn late; they should have been asleep in their rooms, not programming at this hour."

Mark shrugged. "That Redwood we brought ain't anywhere near what the public is ready for yet. You wanna just jump into a computer science facility and say 'hey, guys, we hate to bother you, but we need to use your computers to connect to a BBS that's actually a front for a secret organization in order to send them intelligence information. Any problems with that?'"

"Still think it's all too easy," Kenji sat down next to Mark, spinning the office chair around to face his partner. "I can't believe the Army still hasn't found out that there's no such thing as a Colonel Robeson Leiber."

"Don't matter. Nobody gonna track down the Reptile." Mark pulled a battered photograph out of his pocket. "We just confirmed that whatever this thing was, it can dance around the latest and greatest armored vehicles out there."

"I still owe you a beer for that photo," Kenji joked.

"I know, I know."

Kenji stared deeply at the photo for a moment, scowling as if to accuse it of something. All that it was to the untrained eye was a crater amongst other craters, the shelled-out corpses of tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, and crashed helicopters. Still, the crater had an unfamiliarity to it that always caused the MITHRIL agent to scratch his head in confusion.

It was what appeared to be a leg.

"'Unidentified metal or alloy scrap, length at least five yards, width at least two, Negev Desert, August 15th, 1981, KH-11 intercept on treaty violation investigation,'" Kenji read off the caption on the back of the photo. "Why were we pulling info from the Negev?"

There was a low groan as one of the students started to regain consciousness.

"Come on, we gotta get outta here." Kenji stood up, his office chair's wheels squeaking strangely. "Think they gotta oil those wheels a little better?"

The chair made a light _clank_ noise as it slowly impacted another chair. The squeaking sound, however, persisted, turning into a screech, then a warble, then silence.

"That's no office chair..." Mark's sharp ears listened for the sound. "That's a... that's a carrier tone?"

The two operatives turned back to the computer terminal that they had just shut off. The red plastic power switch was firmly in the OFF position, yet the green screen had come back to life.

CARRIER 2400  
> AT&FN0M  
> 62C5C64BEFF2C6673EB2F3ED3608CA6C071F60215AB267A70ECA0BEE3F92B9  
> AT&FN0M

The monitor continued to spit out random hexadecimal numbers and digits, every time reverting to the AT&F string.

"What the hell is this!" Mark hissed, keeping his voice low.

"It looks like it's taking a call..." Kenji kept his eyes locked on the screen, reaching around the workstation table. "Pen, paper, anything!" He snapped his fingers urgently.

> AT&FN0M  
> 8C114DBA6A6ECD0790B1ED48F4E43C9532EED2EE2006C7F115FC800341  
> AT&FN0M  
> F86EB98C7DEC4A1B9F9E537D87A25D4C  
> AT&FN0M  
> 219EFF3A1B98AC12

"Is it just me, or is it getting smaller?" Kenji mumbled, furiously copying the numbers down.

"Hex codes? Wonder why it's talkin' at us like that?"

"What in the seven hells are hex codes? You mean like a curse?"

"Naw, man, hexadecimal. Ranges from A to F and 0 to 9. It's machine code, like a programming language... looks like it's tryin' to assemble something on us."

"Assemble something?"

> ATF0  
> XMIT OK  
> READY

The codes had stopped coming across. Halving every line, it had dropped from sixteen to eight to four to two to plain English.

> THE ONLY WAY TO STOP THEM IS TO DESTROY THE WHISPERED BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE  
> THERE SHOULD BE NO OTHER OPTION THAN PREVENTING THE RISE OF THE 'ARM SLAVES'  
> -NAPA VALLEY

"NAPA VALLEY?" Mark drew in a breath. "Oh my God..."

Kenji was furiously watching the text scroll as he copied. "I know. I don't believe it either."

The cursor blinked slower than normal, the quickened pace having slackened down to what felt like the tolling of cathedral bells.

> ATH0  
> CONNECTION HANGUP

"We have to get out of here, right now," Mark's voice lost all Bronx ghetto feel as he fell back on his training. "And we have to destroy this terminal, too."

Kenji shook his head. "We may have to take the entire facility down. Just the fact that NAPA VALLEY's name is being used means there's going to be some _serious _problems if this gets out."

"You fuckin' crazy?" Mark exclaimed. "We can't blow up a computer lab! Let's just pry the memory off the motherboard of the terminal and upload a worm to the server! It's messy, but we can always pin it on these guys!" Mark tossed his head in the bound students' direction.

"And risk an investigation?"

"Wait a minute, look!"

Kenji followed Mark's outstretched finger to the computer screen.

> UCLA TERMINAL SERVER 1.4.2  
> PASSWORD ACCESS ONLY  
> LOGON: ADMIN01  
> PASSWORD: XXXXXXXXXXXXX  
> LOGON OK  
> HELLO, STEVEN W. FALKEN  
> TODAY IS 27 AUGUST 1981  
> THE CURRENT TIME IS 11:32 PM  
> COMMAND: RDISK  
> WARNING! RDISK WILL REMOVE DISK-BASED OPERATING SYSTEM  
> 512 KB OUT OF 512 KB WILL BE ERASED FROM SERVER OPERATING SYSTEM  
> ARE YOU SURE? Y/N  
> Y  
> INPUT RDISK ADMIN COMMAND: RDISK IMM  
> YOU HAVE SELECTED IMMEDIATE DISK-BASED OPERATING SYSTEM REMOVAL  
> INPUT RDISK ADMIN COMMAND-LEVEL PASSWORD: XXXXXXXXXXXXX

"This thing is... this thing is cracking its own passwords!" Mark marveled, scrambling down to eye level with the computer, shoving Kenji out of the way. The students started to muffle distressed sounds through their gags. "That was two thirteen-character passwords it just pulled out of thin air!"

"You're the computer specialist. What does that _mean!_"

"It means that this terminal, which was just powered off, somehow turned itself back on and loaded a program that someone managed to feed us remotely, then talk to us _and_ access data that normally doesn't make it into the system memory..." Mark bit his lower lip. "This is a hacker beyond hacking that I've ever seen or done..."

> RDISK COMPLETE  
> BAD COMMAND OR FILE NAME  
> BAD COMMAND OR FILE NAME  
> BAD COMMAND OR FILE NAME  
> BAD COMMAND OR FILE NAME

The text fed down onto the screen, letting out a continuous _beepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeep_ monotone.

"Looks like we don't need to blow anything up..." Mark hefted Kenji to his feet, not an easy task considering his bemuscled partner. "They just erased the entire server. It's junk until they wipe and reprogram the damn fool thing. Let's go."

"Are you sure?"

"Bro, we don't want to be _near_ this place in about ten minutes. Our friends're just about to start wriggling their way out, or campus security'll find them. I don't wanna look like you're out of a Bruce Lee film and I'm outta Superfly, so can we make our muthafuckin' _exit_ already?"

"Okay, okay, we're going," Kenji calmly replied, holding up his hands.

**September 1st, 1964  
Arzamas-16 laboratory, R.S.F.S.R.  
8:00 PM**

"Connect main power cables to operational facility!"

The KGB guard stretched his arms out, grasping his standard-issue AK-47 rifle by its pistol grip, stamping his feet against the cold Indian summer night. Nizhny Novgorod was not known for its warmth at any time of the year, and the loudspeaker announcements never really interested him much.

"Main power cables connected. Power feeds from Pripyat, Leningrad, Irkutsk, and Moscow up and running at 110 percentof rated power."

That caught his attention. _Four major cities? Are those code names? Or the actual cities themselves?_

"Feed redirection complete. Attention all personnel, level-2 security procedures are now in effect for the test hangar. I repeat, commence level-2 procedures. All area security, deploy immediately to within test hangar."

"Yevgeniy! You hear that?" the guard called to the roving guardsman over the radio.

"_Da_, comrade, I copied it. I am moving."

"Roger. See you inside, where it's warm, yeah?"

"_Da_. Yevgeniy out."

His physical condition miraculously retained itself in the cold, thanks to all the running he did, and he was inside the massive test hangar in a few minutes' time.

"Good evening, Pavel!" the guard heard a call from the security check window outside the access door of the hangar. "Pass, please?"

"Here you are, Boris," the guard—Pavel—slid his laminated KGB security ID through the slot in the glass. Boris performed the perfunctory check and buzzed the door open. "Any idea what's on tonight?"

"Comrade, you'd count yourself lucky to be on the level-2 squad tonight!" Boris' eyes sparkled. "It's like a circus of white coats in there!"

"Is that so?"

"Attention all personnel, commencing gyro spin-up and check. Engage protective gear. VUR maintenance team, load Alpha software into memory."

"Alpha software loading commencing. Complete in forty seconds."

Pavel slung the strap of his AK over his shoulder, accepting a proffered helmet and protective magnetized goggles from a low-level technician. He made his way up a catwalk to get a better view, as well as to take his security position. The metal apparatus he looked down upon had him double-taking looks on the way up, trying to see what exactly he was looking down on.

"Alpha software has been loaded. System response is nominal. Ready for command input."

"Prepare to input test commands. All personnel, stand behind the red line."

"Pavel, are you seeing this!"

"_Da_, Yevgeniy, but what is it?"

"It looks like gigantic metal pants!" the other guard joked.

"Clear this channel!" a harsh third voice interjected.

"_Da_, colonel!"

"Right away, sir!"

Pavel peered over the catwalk guard at the huge, wiry mass in the middle of the testing hangar. As the scientists and technicians cleared a ten-meter radius, he got a clear full-on front view of the apparatus. Indeed, it looked like a pair of pants, but where the waist should have been, a massive, clunky device with whirling, orbiting arms sat atop a haphazard pile of wires, circuitry, and mechanical devices.

"Ring-laser gyro spinup complete! Hydraulic systems green! Mechanics, ready to commence testing procedure!"

"Command sequence input and acknowledged! Ready on execution order! Software, ready to commence testing procedure!"

"Perimeter secure! All access secure! Final radar sweep completed! Security, ready to commence testing procedure!"

"Attention all sections, this is Rachenkov," a gritty, gravelly voice echoed over the loudspeaker system. "Commence the test of the '_Vooruzhennoye Ustrojstvo Raba_.'"

Over the ponderous _shweeeeee _of active hydraulics, the legs without a body let out a low hiss. The whining drone of the spinning gyroscope was loud enough to drown out most noise, but the extended, undulating whine of pneumatic pump extenders permeated the test hangar. Slowly, as drawn-out as slow motion could get, over thirty seconds, the left leg took a step forward.

"VUR stage one test complete. Begin stage two test," Rachenkov's voice echoed again. After another thirty seconds, the right leg had stepped totally parallel to the left leg. It had taken a baby step forward.

"Stage two test complete. Begin stage three test."

The _whiiiiiiiine-THUNK whiiiiiiiine-THUNK_ of the legs' motion and footfall shook the hangar as its pace quickened, turning directly around in the space of forty-five seconds. Pavel had forgotten all about his rifle at this point; he had descended the catwalk stairs to get a closer look.

"Stage three test complete. Begin final stage."

The whine increased in pitch to a near shriek, but the legs began to move a little quicker. Tentatively, then with the finality of a chunk breaking off of an iceberg, the legs walked all of four steps, two on each foot, in quick succession.

"Test complete. Power down all systems and secure the VUR."

The lights in the test hangar flickered a moment, then went back to their normal intensity, as the power feeds were cut off and restored; a great cheer rang up from the people assembled in the hangar.

"Comrades! Congratulations!" Solov, the lab administrator, was pounding everyone on the bag, bear-hugging, shaking hands, grinning broadly. "The _rodina_ is proud of you all! Congratulations!" He pressed his way through the crowd, dashing past Pavel on the catwalk towards the control room.

"Comrade Rachenkov! Congratulations, my friend! You have done it!" Solov exclaimed, bursting through the door, resplendent in his green serge KGB dress uniform.

Rachenkov was coughing harshly, doubled over. Solov rushed over to help him up, but felt a sudden whiff of air off to his left.

"Oh? You brought Natalya with you?"

The Asian girl, hooked up to a portable IV tree, stood an easy head-and-a-half shorter than Solov, but she bore her eyes up at him in a mix of anger and curiosity.

"Yes," Rachenkov sheepishly smiled between coughs. "She is the motivation and center of the project. I felt it best to bring her with us."

"This is strange..." Solov tilted his head. "I do not remember this as approved attire."

"I had a _babushka_ from the village sew it together," Rachenkov explained the simple patchwork cotton dress on the Asian girl. "It is a festive occasion, and a young lady should look her best at such times."

"How very true. But enough isolation and throwing switches, comrade! Come, join us! We'll uncork every last bottle of vodka that we can find in this entire complex!" Solov thrust his fists into the air, grinning once again.

"Yes. Let me finish up here and I will be right down, comrade." Rachenkov again cleared his gravelly throat.

That was enough for Solov, who ran out onto the catwalk, shoving his way past Pavel, hollering propaganda slogans all along.

"So you see?" he asked Natalya, who looked at him silently by means of answer. "Now you see what it all is?"

The _Shepatavshiy_ was silent.

"There is never an escape for any of the truly innocent in this world, Natalya. I wish to God that I could make it otherwise for you, my dear."

Rachenkov slouched forward, propping his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands.

"I would weep for you, and for everyone down there, but all that will bring is nothing. I will free us from here and end this. It seems nobody else here has the sanity or presence of mind to do otherwise."

**To be continued...**

**A/N and cultural notes: **

"Da" is "Yes" in Russian.

"Dosvidanya" is "farewell." Mark's joke is a bit of black humor, referring to the tendency of Soviet test pilots to crash frequently. It was passed around the test corps from the late 60s to the early 80s.


	3. Sunlight on a Broken Column

**A/N**: First off, big thanks to my beta readers, Anysia and Lakewood, as well as thanks to cultnirvana and the entire FMP! fanfic community for their support. Most of it has been behind the scenes, but highly structural. I encourage everyone to send in their critiques! I'm striving to grow better as I write. Special thanks as well to Jack Douglas and M.johnson for leaving reviews. Thanks for picking up the references, Jack; MGS3 really kicked me back towards FMP! recently. I hadn't really thought in terms of otaku-izing the Soviet Union in years, not since I was a young Shinji Kazama, and seeing the old lines drawn again got my blood pumping. Good notice on the Tom Clancy as well, M.; I first read Red Storm Rising when I was ten years old after playing the old computer game for ages. That was the formative book of my life; everything else I became as a person roots back to Red Storm in some way.

Second off... well, there is no second off. I again encourage everyone to check out my Comic Party fics. I don't know how much updating I'll be able to do this week at work; most of this fic was written on a Sunday, 12/19 to be exact. I should have been playing video games. See what I do for you people:-P

This was composed on OpenOffice after my Windows decided to die. It's at this point where I'm about to officially endorse a Linux distro, as this is the second time in four weeks that Windows has decided that it operated far too much for an operating system. Anyway, this is my belated Christmas gift to you all; enjoy and I hope you look forward to the next chapter!

On with the show!

* * *

"**The Hollow Men" by T.S. Eliot, second canto**

"Eyes I dare not meet in dreams  
In death's dream kingdom  
These do not appear:  
There, the eyes are  
Sunlight on a broken column  
There, is a tree swinging  
And voices are  
In the wind's singing  
More distant and more solemn  
Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer  
In death's dream kingdom  
Let me also wear  
Such deliberate disguises  
Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves  
In a field  
Behaving as the wind behaves  
No nearer --

Not that final meeting  
In the twilight kingdom."

* * *

_**2: Sunlight on a Broken Column

* * *

**_

**August 29th, 1981  
Sydney International Airport, International Terminal, gate 3  
Sydney, Australia  
8:45 AM**

The two agents had been plucked from the airport with no particular advisement. Their Qantas flight had only literally been connected to the jetway at Sydney International when a storm of Australian Federal Police agents crashed their way through. Mark and Kenji had cooperated—there was little other option lest civilians be caught in a vicious melee. Their surprise at seeing a member of MITHRIL's Pacific Operations Command's executive staff in the unmarked AFP van was rather muted.

"Tell Major Jacobs he can kiss my black ass," Mark growled at the lowly lance corporal. "Thirty _thousand_ dollars? For a fuckin' junk-ass jeep that they can't find back at Fort Irwin?"

"S-sergeant, there's nothing I can do," the corporal stammered. "When the jeep was reported stolen, we had to put it as an equipment transfer to Edwards Air Force Base, and--"

"I KNOW the procedure!" Mark shouted over the roaring engine of the jeep. "Corporal, I swear to Jesus Christ in Heaven, I'm gonna strangle you as soon as they get these handcuffs off me!" He shook the cuffs, securely fastening his wrists behind his back, and to accent it, sneered at the MITHRIL operative.

Kenji cleared his throat. "Mark, they're not going to take the cuffs off you after a line like that."

"You think they ain't gonna? Oh, they _gonna!_"

Kenji chuckled. "They can take the kid out of the Bronx, but they can't take the Bronx out of the kid," he observed with a rare, if not equally thin, smile. "Corporal, I'll sign for that. You owe me thirty thousand out of your next Christmas bonus, Mark."

"I don' owe you _shit,_ Kenji, and I want my beer the _minute_ we get outta HQ! Within sixty seconds' time, I want a fuckin' Fourex!"

"They don't sell Fourex in New South Wales, Mark, only in Queensland."

"I know. I want you to suffer after all this shit that hit us after a sixteen-hour flight with piss-poor drink service!"

"Well, suit yourself," Kenji shrugged. "Oh, by the way, corporal, you might want these." With a few deft shrugs and the _clink_ of metal on metal, Kenji rolled his shoulders and brought his formerly handcuffed hands around to his front, passing over the metal cuffs themselves to the stunned corporal. They were as open and unlocked as a Seven-Eleven; a thin, strangely-bent paperclip was jutting out from one of the keyholes.

"Oh _hell_ no. Now I _really_ need a beer."

Kenji signed a form authorizing a one-time deduction of $32,032.21 for a replacement jeep to take the place of the one they had "borrowed" from Fort Irwin, despite Mark's grumbles about a bloated American military budget. It wasn't that big of a hit, considering that their MITHRIL Swiss and Cayman accounts already totaled a princely fortune for each of the men. Kenji Moriyama was never much of a big spender, and MITHRIL had good connections to high-yield long-term depositories.

"Why the sudden pickup, anyway?" Mark sighed, trying to wiggle his hands in order to prevent pins and needles. "Y'all couldn't wait until we checked in?"

"General Sachar requires the two of you in his office immediately," the corporal shook his head. "We had to act fast before someone actually contacted the AFP."

"Camouflage & Concealment wanted to try out their newest poly/cotton blends?" Mark joked darkly.

"Probably something like that. Did he mention what he needed to see us about?"

"No, sir, no mention. General Sachar asked me to be present in order to ensure your safe retrieval."

"Yeah? Is that so?" Mark leaned forward, trying to get in the corporal's face. Unfortunately, it was a little hard for his intended intimidation to take effect, being on the opposite side of a van and handcuffed. "Who told you to say 'Hi guys, welcome back, here's a cup of coffee, a handshake, and a bill for thirty G's without the cup of coffee and the handshake'?"

"That would be major Jacobs, sir."

"Thought so. I _knew_ it. Yo, corporal, what's he gonna do if we fail to submit an expense report? Call in Her Majesty's Goddamn Secret Service?"

Kenji tuned out the banter; the corporal explained how he was just following orders and doing his job, and Mark kept insinuating that his job was about to include what he billed as "a trip down Pain Street with a right on Kick-In-The-Face Boulevard." He checked his watch, an old British Army-issue Longines, and settled in for the ride to MITHRIL's regional headquarters.

**MITHRIL Pacific Command (MITHPAC) Headquarters  
9:32 AM**

General Sachar looked up from the response form MITHRIL command had sent regarding his intelligence report. "Come in," he responded to the knocking sound on his door.

_After I finish with these two, I'll sleep,_ he thought, sipping coffee from a white mug emblazoned with the MITHRIL logo. _I'll have to thank Skolnick down in Photo for putting in so much effort to find those cross-references so late at night... _

The door opened; Mark and Kenji strode in, saluting. "Sergeant Kenji Moriyama and Sergeant Curtis Marqata, reporting as ordered, sir," Kenji announced, his voice rather unenthusiastic and measured.

Sachar stood from his desk and returned the salute, rubbing his eyes as he brought his hand down. "I've read your notes from last night, gentlemen—or should I say yesterday morning. You seem totally unaffected by the jet-lag," he noted, the steely commander in his voice giving way to a tidbit of Australian jest.

"It'll kick in later, sir," Mark replied, standing at ease.

"Right. Sit down, gentlemen," Sachar gestured to the polished mahogany office chairs opposite his desk; the two men took a chair each. "I've read the notes, so let's hear your full report."

"At 0945 hours on August 26th, I was able to war-dial an open external access line through the Strategic Air Command network interface station located in Ofutt Air Force Base," Mark began, "and utilizing a blue-box masker, we successfully gained access to the Air Force Training Command internal system. I used that internal access to shift into the Army's network, creating a fake entry for a specialized training exercise to any unit available at the NTC at Fort Irwin. We managed to upload schematics for the theoretical capabilities of the Leapfrog Project, assuming a worst-case scenario—third-generation hydraulics, a trained operator, and defiladed positions."

"How was the tank crew able to handle it?"

"Given the conditions, sir, they weren't." Mark shook his head. "If the Leapfrog is as capable as the worst-case scenario, that tank would have been wasted. Again, sir, it seems like a stretch to assume the capabilities that we ascribed to the exercise are accurate. The estimated data is based off of information that REFUSENIK sent years ago."

Sachar nodded. "Agreed, sergeant, but we must assume the absolute worst possibilities. The best-case scenario has already passed. We know that at least one was in combat at one point."

"Have there been any reports from MITHCENT on their investigation so far, general?" Kenji asked.

Sachar growled. "With the fact that they're working on infiltrating Black September and the PLO, MITHCENT has put the investigation on hold. They're screaming for funds, and rightfully so. They intercepted another KGB officer trying to transit out of Tel Aviv for London."

Mark let out a low whistle. "KGB's sending people through Israel? That's pretty damn dangerous."

"It was a good attempt, to give them credit. Yes, it was dangerous; this one was barely disguised. Russian citizen, Russian passport, fake tourist visa stamp good all the way to Heathrow. They normally send in agents under diplomatic cover—the usual 'cultural attaché'— but that restricts what they can do. They have to register as diplomats, so we know who they are and where they're going. Hell, the host country's intelligence agency does the same thing. The only thing we have to watch out for is if a MITHRIL operative runs into a CIA or MI5 agent in the same pub. "

The two men chuckled a little at Sachar's joke. "So they're too busy to look for the scrap in the photo?" Kenji asked.

Sachar nodded. "MITHCENT is far too focused on keeping the Arab-Israeli conflicts from spilling over. The '76 war shook everyone up when they found Soviet military advisors in with the Syrian and Egyptian forces. It took MITHCENT some serious work to extract the Soviets in Israeli captivity before that story hit the papers. We may have to pick up the slack on searching out the scrap pile."

"There's more that happened, sir," Mark spoke up. "After we transmitted the notes, we ran into a little situation in the computer lab."

"Nothing you couldn't handle, right?" Sachar sipped his coffee.

"We were contacted by NAPA VALLEY, sir," Kenji said in the same tone of voice as if he had just said 'Excuse me, your shoelace is untied.'

Sachar inhaled his coffee and began to cough.

"You _what?_"

Kenji explained how the powered-off computer terminal had suddenly come back on, downloaded machine code, installed a program, communicated directly to them, and proceeded to erase the operating system and all files on the mainframe. Kenji only explained because Mark would have lapsed into the actual technology too quickly; moreover, they didn't need Mark's easily-excitable tones describing NAPA VALLEY to the general.

"NAPA VALLEY..." General Sachar took in a deep breath, stepping up from his chair and going over to a large area map of the Pacific Rim tacked to the wall. "We never did get confirmation that the operation failed, just as we never confirmed its success, either..."

"No, sir, we never did," Kenji replied.

_So he's alive... or he had a disciple... either way, if NAPA VALLEY has gotten himself involved in the Leapfrog Project, this is not going to be easy. Then again, this wasn't easy in the first place._

Sachar went back to his desk, and in one swift motion, downed the rest of his coffee. "As of this moment," he said, all casual nature gone from his voice and the commander's steel out of its sheath, "your leaves are canceled and no requests will be considered. You are on twenty-four hour duty and will be on-call in MITHPAC headquarters until further notice. Acknowledge the order."

Mark and Kenji looked at each other. Mark was slightly downcast, but curiosity clearly had taken its root across his dark cocoa visage. When Mark met his partner's eyes, though, there was a strange emotion present within them.

"Acknowledged," Mark and Kenji replied in unison, turning to face the general.

"For now, you're going to prepare a briefing for MITHPAC on the situation from here on up. Be prepared to present it tonight."

"Yes, sir," the agents responded, less than enthusiastically.

"I know it's grunt work and you're probably fatigued as hell," the general assured them. "But at this point, we may be asked to take up the slack for MITHCENT and even MITHEUR. The Pacific has calmed down; the last thing we had to work on before you two were just assigned was the latest flare-up in the Spratlys. This, I think, is a lot bigger than territorial concerns over undersea oil. Is there anything else I need to know? What are your questions for me?" Both men already knew of Sachar's reputation to answer anything put before him as honestly and completely as he could.

"How sure can we be about NAPA VALLEY's involvement, sir?" Kenji asked coolly.

"The latest reports we have on his activity date back almost five years," Sachar shook his head. "We cannot be sure of anything other than what you two gentlemen have brought to the table. I would assume that he is as actively involved as he ever would be for matters such as this."

The two were silent.

"Dismissed."

The sergeants stood and again exchanged salutes with the general.

"Lonnie!" Sachar yelled before the door could close. "Get me the Commander on his direct line. I need to speak to him immediately. Sergeant Moriyama, may I have a word in private?"

Kenji stopped short. "I'll see you up in the living quarters; we'll start working on the briefing up there," he said, patting Mark on the shoulder. "Don't forget the transparency sheets."

"Yes, Mr. Moriyama," Mark gave his best impression of a secretary's voice.

"Close the door, sergeant, and sit down." Sachar's voice had lost both its jest and its iron, taking on a sympathetic tone that Kenji hadn't yet heard from the Intelligence branch commander.

"What can I do for you, sir?" Kenji asked.

"I need to know right here, right now, and with fullest conviction if you want to be excused from this mission," Sachar folded his hands together and leaned towards Kenji. "I will hold no ill will towards you—personal, professional, or otherwise—if you'd like to be excused. I can find you another mission. Hell, I'll even pull Marqata off this if you want to be off elsewhere. You can take some vacation time, you can sign on for another regional mission; I'm giving you carte blanche to request anything you want."

Kenji was silent; he was gripping the arms of the chair with notable strain. Sachar saw the small, powerful man's knuckles turning white, then red, with pressure and increased blood flow. He began fearing for the welfare of his chair; Kenji seemed ready to crush it at will.

"NAPA VALLEY is nothing for you to shake a stick at," Sachar restored his steel. "Son, are you going to be in on this or do you want out?" he barked.

"You don't have to worry about me, general," Kenji replied with all the emotion of a silicon chip. "I'll follow all orders given to me in service to MITHRIL."

"Dammit, Moriyama!" Sachar pounded his desk, causing everything except for a large framed photo of his family to jump. Kenji, however, was unfazed. "I could order you to the beaches of Bora Bora and to stay there for two weeks in a deluxe suite at the Hyatt, right here and right now, all expenses paid, plus part of _my own personal pay_ as a spending stipend! Will you obey _that_ order!"

Kenji remained silent, but general Sachar's tirade had its intended effect. He had lightened his stress-reaction grasp on the arms of the chair.

"Sergeant, I know how you feel about NAPA VALLEY and his past involvement with MITHRIL," Sachar got up and walked around to the front of his desk, draping his uniform jacket over the chair's back. He sat down, facing his subordinate's unspeaking left side, staring directly into the trim, narrow eyes of Kenji's prominently Asiatic features. "I know that you'd slice his throat open, go for a sniper shot at a thousand yards with a clunky old Dragunov, blow up his car, blow up his _building,_ regardless of whoever was in it—civilian, government, military, royalty—am I not correct?"

"You are correct, sir," Kenji replied, barely even whispering.

"Am I not correct, then, in assuming that you are a potential danger to the mission should NAPA VALLEY present himself?"

"Given the assumptions of what I admitted my willingness towards... you would be correct, sir." Kenji still kept his gaze forward, his back ramrod straight.

"Moriyama, you're a multitalented and skilled operative. Ever since we brought you in from the Japanese Self-Defense Force, you've proven yourself an apt pupil, a capable trainer, and a covert agent that MITHRIL cannot risk losing lightly. Hell, your ability to train agents in practical hand-to-hand combat and small arms keeps me wondering why Command doesn't take you out of the field already." Sachar crossed his legs, leaning back on his chair. "Speaking freely, sergeant, with no words leaving this room. Are you capable of handling this mission?"

Kenji was silent.

_He's thinking,_ Sachar thought, rubbing his chin, trying to get a handle of how badly he would need to shave. _If he had barked anything right out, I'd have him clapped in irons post-haste. Good, Moriyama. Think about it. Give me an honest answer._

"I will be able to complete any mission which I am ordered to complete, general," Kenji turned in his chair to face Sachar. "I will function to my fullest, obey all orders given to me that do not violate MITHRIL's guidelines, bylaws, or principles, and above all, preserve, protect, and defend the lives of the innocent."

_It's good to have you on the level, Moriyama. This puts me well at ease._

"You will brief the assembled staff at 1700 hours," Sachar stood up. Kenji stood as well. "I want everything up from the history of the Leapfrog Project to NAPA VALLEY."

"Yes, sir!" Kenji saluted. Sachar returned it, looking the small-statured man over with his practiced blue eyes.

_Your name translates to "Forest Mountain" in Japanese, right? Something strong amongst tranquility. I've never been one to underestimate etymology, but you're making your family line proud, that's for sure._

**Afterword/Glossary:**

I thought it best to give a little more background information on MITHRIL's operations. All we see in FMP! so far is the Pacific Fleet, with a cameo from the Indian Ocean squadron. Nobody's ever yet tried to bring up the fact that if MITHRIL can afford to operate and maintain a $5 billion submarine with the force projection capability of a Tarawa-class marine assault ship, they can probably operate globally as well.

Every chapter of The Hollow Men from here on out will have a brief description and explanation of a MITHRIL command. I hope this can provide some idea of the scope I envision MITHRIL to have in this fanon. All information here is strictly fictional from my own mind. Don't bother writing Shoji Gato; he won't know this either.

**MITHPAC**: MITHRIL Pacific Command. Headquarters: Under Hyde Park, Sydney, Australia; main base: Merida Island, South Pacific. Pacific Command, showcased in the series of Full Metal Panic, is responsible for the West Coast of the United States and all nations in the Pacific Rim. While not as highlighted as MITHCENT, as recognized as MITHSOUTH, or as active as MITHEUR, MITHPAC is never without operations, considering their territory: Russia and the Soviet republics, the Koreas, China, Indonesia, Australia and New Zealand, etc. MITHPAC manages to work miracles with small teams of agents. They use the Runic alphabet to assign call signs (Urzu, Teiwaz, et. Al. are all from the Norse Runic).

MITHPAC has operated as one of the main arms of MITHRIL since it was formed in 1953 after the Korean War cease-fire began. The Pacific Rim has a double-punch of major regions of interest to both the Soviets and the Americans; thus, MITHRIL is constantly working to prevent one side from gaining the influence over the other. Geared primarily for mobile operations, MITHPAC operates light aircraft carriers disguised as container ships. Under ingenious disguise, helicopters and assault craft (Hovercraft, landing ships, etc.) can deploy from these retrofitted ships. MITHPAC often recruits some of the most capable special forces combatants from around the world, and they are expected to adapt to the urban jungles of developed areas like Japan, coastal China, Taiwan, Singapore, etc., as much as they are expected to adapt to the _real_ jungles of Indonesia, Vietnam, etc.

In 1981, MITHPAC is mostly involved with suppressing opium and heroin production in the Golden Triangle, as well as interdicting Indonesian territorial intrusions against Australia. They are also active in ensuring a balance of power in the oil-rich Spratly island chain located between Vietnam, China, and the Philippines.

MITHPAC has an extended headquarters located beneath Hyde Park in the center of Sydney, Australia. Its entrance is in a back alley located between Sydney's old Jewish synagogue and a tobacconist; an easily camouflaged location. The main combat and fleet base on isolated Merida Island in the South Pacific only became operational in 1975; it houses a large airfield, drydock facilities, and training grounds. The airfield and drydock are noteworthy since both are located within the extinct volcanic mountains in the center of the island. Landing or docking at either is a challenge for even the most seasoned pilots and captains.


	4. Behaving as the Wind Behaves

**A/N:** Here we go with the next chapter, with major props to Anysia and Lakewood for their beta work. I hope everyone had an awesome New Year's! I went for Korean BBQ with friends and to NYC on New Year's Day. It was much awesomeness.

I got an iPod, too! The new 4th-generation 40 gigabyte model. This thing can carry enough music to choke a camel. I also picked up the HP printable iPod tattoos and threw on a School Rumble motif. FMP! may be next, depending on how long my mood lasts for School Rumble. I urge you all to get an iPod. If you've got MP3s, it's MAD worth it. So smooth, so sexy, so beautiful, and it's as functional as form can suggest, too. Teh lovely.

I do want to acknowledge a point that Wild Goose 01 brought up. This story is indeed within the canon of the novels, which can be found at boku-tachi dot net. As for the rest... it's plot, so you'll have to read on to find out.

On with the show!

* * *

_**3: Behaving as the Wind Behaves**__**

* * *

**_

**MITHPAC Briefing Auditorium  
5:00 PM**

The briefing call-out assembled the several hundred active agents, soldiers, commanders, and staff members present in MITHPAC headquarters that evening. Videotape recorders connected to bulky cameras observed and recorded the briefing for couriering the next morning to the other commands of MITHRIL: MITHEUR headquarters in Rome, MITHLANT headquarters in London, MITHCENT in Tel Aviv, MITHSOUTH in Caracas, and MITHAF's distributed commands in Casablanca and Cape Town respectively.

"The item of interest is codenamed the 'Leapfrog Project,'" Mark led off after General Sachar had called them all to attention and Kenji had read off the security disclaimers. "In June of 1964, while NAPA VALLEY was still in MITHRIL's ranks, a report was filed detailing the first encounter of what was known to the Soviets as a _'Shepatavshiy_,' a 'Whispered.' Later appearances of Whispered were confirmed from various locations: in the United States, eight-year old children were solving doctoral-level physics problems; in Africa, they were hailed by animist tribes as young shamans, seers, and healers, while in Asia, they were even elected to local government."

There was a chuckle amongst the audience. The story of the village of Xiaoqing, deep within the Chinese countryside, was legendary; a twelve-year old boy had proposed agricultural methodologies that greatly improved village food production and distribution; time soon had him as the de facto mayor. Were it not for MITHRIL's swift involvement, the Communist government would have caught word and gotten their hands on the boy. He was now heading up an export policy office in Taiwan at the ripe old age of seventeen.

"This Whispered was thought to be kept under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs laced with Versed, a widely-used higher brain impairing agent. This kept her as a virtual zombie, not having the ability to function in proper thoughts. She couldn't question them, couldn't make plans to rebel. All she could do was tap into a vast repository of knowledge and techniques. She was working with one Dr. Gregor Rachenkov, AKA Gregor Rachenberg, a concentration camp survivor who was taken in by the Soviets at the end of the war. He was a student of theoretical physics and computer engineering, and the Soviets quickly brought him into their weapons development hierarchy. Working with the designs of the Whispered—NAPA VALLEY even reported that the Whispered herself participated in later construction efforts—Rachenkov was able to bring about what is believed to be the prototype of a ring-laser gyroscope, amongst other things. Lights, please."

The lights in the room dimmed as a slide projector clicked on, displaying a da Vinci-like sketch of a large gyroscope. Instead of spinning rings, though, the gyroscope displayed a pair of twin laser projectors suspended within a cutaway of light sensors.

"The ring-laser gyro—which, I should note, American scientists eventually developed last year—is used to measure precise alignment deviations and maintain a centralized sense of balance. Mechanical gyros were able to maintain balances, but not nearly to the precision of a ring-laser. For example, an ICBM with a regular gyro has an accuracy within four hundred meters after a six-thousand mile flight. An ICBM with a ring-laser gyro has a theoretical accuracy of only one hundred meters. The Soviet ring-laser gyro, however, used some mechanical parts in its operation. This means that our most recent hard information from REFUSENIK, dating to 1965, most likely is outdated. We should assume that the design has been vastly improved over time."

Mark clicked the next slide, nodding to Kenji. "This photo was taken by an American KH-11 photo-reconnaissance satellite on August 15th. It was scanning the Negev Desert near the Egypt-Israel border to ensure that Egyptian military forces were acting within compliance of the cease-fire treaty that ended the '76 Yom Kippur War. What it found, amongst some fairly damning evidence of the Egyptian 12th Mechanized Infantry Division being way on the wrong side of the line, was this." Kenji extended a pointer and gestured at the now-familiar leg shape. It looked like it came from a recent sci-fi film, mimicking a straightened chicken's leg with a broad, multi-toed foot. It extended out of a long-dead crater, the victim of some untold weapon.

"This, people, is a leg. A mechanical leg. A mechanical leg, judging from interpretations by our photo analysts, that is at least five yards tall and two yards wide. Let's put two and two together. Lights on, please."

"Given the fact that the Soviets were working on a ring-laser gyro, albeit a fairly crude and imprecise one, almost twenty years ahead of a Western nation," Kenji continued, "as well as a mechanical leg system, we can assume that they are at least a full generation ahead of the United States and all NATO nations in terms of research and development for an armored vehicle that stably walks upright instead of using wheels, treads, or other ground-based movement. With the height and width of the leg that we see in this photo, assuming that it's made of pure steel and not a higher-tensile alloy, we're dealing with an honest-to-God walking tank. Not only do we believe it to be capable of walking over most terrain at fairly high speeds, we believe it to be capable of short leaps at four to five times its walk speed. There is no further hard information off of which to base an analysis. We can only hope that we've overestimated the capabilities of this new vehicle."

The entire auditorium erupted in whispers and chatter.

"Can it!" Kenji shouted in a rare moment, bringing the assembled staff back to order. "We approximated the unit's capabilities and ran it through an exercise against a new American M1 tank. It was easily outclassed. The long and short of the situation so far, people, is that the Soviet Union has fielded at least one of these new weapons that we know of at some point into the deserts of the Sinai. Since NAPA VALLEY's disappearance and the death of REFUSENIK—Dr. Rachenkov—we have had no contacts or agents that could provide us with further information on these weapons. We don't even have a code name or command structure, but we can assume that this is a government project judging from the strong presence of KGB guard staff that REFUSENIK reported. That, however, was twenty years ago."

"Upon reporting this back to command," Mark picked up, "Sergeant Moriyama and I encountered an unusual phenomenon." He related the incident in the UCLA computer lab to the assembled staff.

When he finished, there was absolutely no chatter or whispering from the audience. It seemed like a series of far-spaced heartbeats had permeated the auditorium as every agent who was religious started to implore their respective deity or deities for protection.

"We stand at this point assuming that NAPA VALLEY, or someone highly placed and trained enough to imitate him, is alive and is of a parallel, if not similar, goal than ours at this point. If not, we wouldn't be here talking to you right now. This concludes our briefing. Questions?"

"What happened to the Whispered that the Soviets had?" an analyst asked from a middle row.

"Good question." Kenji nodded at the inquirer. "NAPA VALLEY reported that she was killed when REFUSENIK tried to rescue her from captivity, but he was unable to confirm that. However, NAPA VALLEY pulled out of the weapons facility when REFUSENIK died, so we have no real confirmation on her whereabouts. For the most part, we are assuming that she is dead. Tracking her down was tasked to MITHEUR, but they couldn't establish a trail since NAPA VALLEY was no longer working REFUSENIK. Given the fact that it took twenty years for one of these to show up in the field, we can assume that she was not actively involved in development or production after REFUSENIK's death in 1966. Any other questions?"

The audience was silent.

"What's our next move?" another voice called out.

"I'll handle that, gentlemen," General Sachar said, nodding to Mark and Kenji. "Excellent briefing."

Sachar strode up the three steel steps to the presentation stage, nodding to the two sergeants. They took some free seats in the front row.

"We are now operating under operation 462-12, operation name SIGNET RING. All briefings, documents, and information pertaining to SIGNET RING are hereby classified Top Secret with all penalties carried out under my personal authority. The objective of operation SIGNET RING is to identify the sources of these new weapons systems and proceed to track them down. When we find any information or infrastructure that allows the continued development, production, or operation of the weapons, our primary task is to gather intelligence and establish the supply chain, then destroy it. We have no other option than eliminating these things and all who created them before they create a drastic imbalance of power. If we cannot stop them, the Soviet sphere of influence will expand to an unacceptable level, which may force the NATO bloc to respond in kind. MITHRIL is founded as the interceptor of international conflict. We must act in that role."

"Operations!" Sachar called out.

"Sir!" Major Saul Jacobs, the wiry, bespectacled head of MITHPAC's Operations, Oversight, and Procurement division, stood up.

"Saul, your section will immediately begin dispersal of MITHPAC assets to our bases on Merida, Saipan, and Newport Island. Co-locate our Tokyo operatives back to Sydney for the time being and divert in accounts from our Micronesian banks. I want our immediate purchasing power to be absolutely no concern or worry from here on out. Meanwhile, increase physical and computer security at our bases."

"Yes, sir!"

"Intelligence!"

"Sir!" This was colonel Chuxiong Wei, Sachar's deputy.

"We'll step up surveillance of the labs and bases on the Kamchatka peninsula and commit our analysts to triple shifts. I don't care about overtime, computers, or coffee consumption. Get what we need from Operations. Step up our gathering efforts at Woomera. We'll air-drop in all ten existing MARSUPIALs to every dish they have in Woomera immediately. This may be a long-haul operation, so commission more MARSUPIAL construction if we need."

"It'll be done, general."

"PRT, SRT!"

"Yes, sir!" twenty-four voices rang out in unison. The primary strike arms of MITHPAC, their Primary and Special Response Teams—each twelve specialists strong—all stood at attention as if ready to engage in a special operation to retake a vending machine around the corner.

"You'll deploy at once to Merida Base for training and tactical development. I want scenarios on how to defeat those things with the weapons we have. Rockets will be useless if they can dodge at those speeds, so work with our recoilless rifles, guided anti-tank missiles, and aircraft. We just acquired a bunch of new Apache helicopters from the US; it'd be a shame to waste them on the ground for the operation. In the mean time, prepare for immediate deployment in support of SIGNET RING. Fehu team, you're leading off primary alert. Berkana team is on standby. That means SRT heads off, so be prepared for some cross-training in case one team deploys to another's specialty."

"Yes, sir!" the soldiers saluted.

"All other sections are to consider themselves on level-1 preparatory alert. All leaves are canceled and all personnel are on standby. We have living quarters built here for a reason, ladies and gentlemen. You _will_ make use of them now."

Sachar emphasized the last part for a reason. MITHRIL paid well for a mercenary organization and it usually attracted more moral-minded former soldiers, agents, and turncoats, but as such, soldiers of fortune sometimes felt inclined to take the money and run. At points of interest, MITHRIL had no intention to let their investments up and flee.

"Your department heads will be handing down orders within the hour. We have no indication of immediate alert, but Command could hand down orders at any moment. Be prepared for the worst. That is all. Dismissed!"

**January 17th, 1965  
Arzamas-16 residential facility, R.S.F.S.R.  
11:47 PM**

"They've begun operational testing?" the voice asked again from out of nowhere.

"_Da._ The recent success of the basic mechanics of the system proved that we were able to maintain a fast walk. However, the Shepatavshiy girl is churning out theory after theory on how to miniaturize even more systems. They are having me work more and more directly with her these days." Rachenkov took another drag on his cigarette; this time, he didn't even bother doubling over coughing. "Pardon the way I sound."

"It's all right," the low, reassuring voice spoke. Rachenkov didn't even bother looking around for the man; he heard only a voice coming from the high snowdrifts around the side entrance of his dormitory. "I've heard worse."

"Probably not," Rachenkov chuckled ominously. "We've begun work on improved hydraulic systems, shrinking them down from our normal sizes. We have experimental systems taken from the turrets of T-55 tanks; the turret rotation system is being allocated to move the legs. Natalya's newest designs get things smaller and smaller on an average of every two weeks. It used to take months of dedicated research to find a way around the engineering problems that came up, but despite some reliability issues, Natalya is replacing entire mechanical engineering research institutes with her work."

"So they're focusing on the basic infrastructure of the unit?"

"They don't want the damn thing to just walk around and _kick_ soldiers, my friend," Rachenkov growled, a task made so much easier by his scratchy voice. "They want to mount a torso on it at some point, then weapons systems. Worse still, they want it to carry different loads. Anti-tank weapons, anti-air, artillery and unguided rockets, even some sort of molecular-thin blade. Of course, that's still in theory. Natalya only sketched out some basic formulas for production alloys of such a weapon not twelve hours ago."

"Dr. Rachenkov, is there any way to slow the progress of the development here?"

"I was never granted a formal degree, you know," Rachenkov corrected the man. "The Nazis came before my doctoral thesis went to the review board."

"I'm sorry."

"I thought myself lucky that the Soviets had read my earlier works before the war," he flicked the still-lit butt of the cigarette into the snow. The burning end spun several times, kicking sparks of ash in a tiny shower towards the ground. It landed filter-down, the end still glowing red-orange before a harsh winter wind snuffed it out.

"They said I'd have the chance to continue my research. Now, I feel like I'm still in the concentration camp. Except they want to keep me alive with all their torture rather than exterminate me."

"I wish there was something I could do to help short of smuggling in supplies." The disembodied voice almost sounded empathetic.

"There is nothing I can do to stop things here short of sacrificing my life," Rachenkov lit another cigarette. "Then again..."

"Doctor, I can't encourage anything that would put you in jeopardy. You can do so much by staying alive and relaying information like this."

"Staying alive?" Rachenkov laughed a gravely ironic laugh. "Staying _alive!_ You think that _living_ saved my wife and my beautiful daughters from the gas chamber? Did I gain anything by living in prisons, first German and then Soviet? _Nichevo!_" He swore, kicking violently at the snow all of a sudden. "Come out, you snake! Show yourself if you think that my pitiful life is worth saving, worth preserving!"

As a sudden gust of wind kicked up a snowdrift, blowing crystalline snowflakes everywhere, Rachenkov felt a hammer blow impact his stomach, just enough below his solar plexus to double him over in a fit of coughing.

"You _chekista_ bastard..." Rachenkov eked out between harsh coughs and drawing in breaths. "Do you--"

The _click_ of a hammer being cocked stopped him in mid-sentence. He turned his head to the source of the sound, looking up at a man clad entirely in pure white camouflage, looking almost like a giant from Rachenkov's bent-over viewpoint. Even the automatic pistol he held in his hand was white twinged with metallic blue, a perfect pressing of azure metal. A white scarf and full-face balaclava ski mask covered his head, and all that was starting back at him were two dark, dark eyes.

"Do you want to die that much?" he spoke, the only indications of a mouth being the movements of his chin beneath the balaclava. "Do you value your life so little as to have it ended right here and now for no purpose? Do you want to see your wife and daughters again so badly?"

"Such words from a man who came all the way from God knows where to this forsaken hell-hole," Rachenkov bravely replied. "Look at me, man. I am forced out of bed early every day with a dyspeptic ulcer in my stomach from the medical conditions that they never treated. I have recurring dysentery from the concentration camps, my bones are brittle, and I am barely sixty years old. These goddamn cigarettes you make me smoke as signals don't help, either. What else do I have to live for?"

Tears were running down his face, almost freezing in the cold night. "Aside from Natalya and the blasted VUR, what do I have to live for?"

"VUR..." the voice replied.

"_'Vooruzhennoye Ustrojstvo Raba_,'" Rachenkov translated. "'Armed Slaved Weapon.' It was originally aimed at autonomous operations, but Natalya has already sketched out a system to translate human movements into the control system. It is 'slaved' to the actions of the pilot, and it's going to be armed sooner or later."

"Is there no way to stop it?"

"No way to stop it?" Rachenkov quizically asked, bringing himself back to his feet, wiping tears from his face with the back of his sleeve. The man held his gun steady against Rachenkov's head. "Put that thing away; they'll find you if you fire off a shot here."

The man was silent for a moment, but with a deft movement, he holstered the weapon in a white nylon tactical holster.

"There is no way to stop it," Rachenkov shook his head. "Short of the death of Natalya or the complete destruction of this facility, there is no way to stop development of the VUR. As far as I know, this is the only facility in existence that is working on the weapon. As far as I know, Natalya is the only Shepatavshiy in all the Warsaw Pact nations. We'd have them all here if we could."

"Destruction is out for now," the agent replied, shaking his head and crouching down to his haunches, blending in with the snow again. "We don't have the ability to reach this far into the Soviet Union with enough forces to level a lab complex."

"Then let me do it."

"You're out of your mind," the agent immediately responded.

"I have more and more access to Natalya every week," Rachenkov picked up the cigarette he had been smoking, then tossed it aside again. "I am even alone with her outside of the clean areas, and I am never searched by the guards. Give me a pistol, a grenade, anything. I will kill her, destroy all her notes and data, then kill myself. After a blow like that, the VUR will come screeching to a halt and it'll go the same way as the Shagohod."

"I'm afraid we couldn't have that," the agent chuckled. "The Shagohod went a very different way."

"Bah. It was destined to fail. Let me do the work for you. I do not know who your backers are, but they will be absolved. Get me a Makarov; it'll look like I stole one from a guard. I-"

The door behind Rachenkov flung open, shocking him into another violent fit of coughing. "Are you all right, comrade?" Major Solov asked, pulling his greatcoat tightly around him. "It's freezing out here!"

"Just having a cigarette, comrade Solov," Rachenkov replied, recovering from his coughing. "It is indeed cold out tonight."

"_Da,_ it is. Come inside before you catch your death, comrade, we have another day awaiting us tomorrow."

"Right away, comrade major," Rachenkov nodded. As he turned towards the door, he met a dark pair of almond eyes in the snow.

**To be continued...**

**Afterword A/N and glossary:**

**NATO**: North Atlantic Treaty Organization. This was the "Western bloc" during the Cold War. Comprised of Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Iceland, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, France, Canada, the United States, the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany), Greece, Turkey, Italy, and several other nations, NATO was a security alliance. One of the main articles of the North Atlantic Treaty, signed and ratified in 1949, which formed NATO was that member states would treat an attack on any other member state by another nation as an attack on themselves. This was basic collective security: "Attack us and we'll all beat you up." The counterpart to NATO was the Warsaw Pact. NATO is still in effect today, but their role is largely unclear; the European Union has no ability to field a military force, yet NATO's primary purpose has become nebulous as a ground war in Europe has become a thing of the past.

**Warsaw Pact**: The Warsaw Pact was formally known as the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance. Signed into being two years after NATO was formed, the Warsaw Pact functioned as a security treaty to the Soviet Union's sphere of influence in Eastern Europe. It linked the Soviet Union, Albania, Bulgaria, Romania, the Democratic Republic of Germany (East Germany), Hungary, Poland, and Czechoslovakia. It functioned under the same basic merits of NATO.

The Warsaw Pact was formally dissolved after the Berlin Wall fell. In Full Metal Panic, it is safe to assume that the Warsaw Pact is still in effect and binding within its member nations.

**ICBM**: Intercontinental Ballistic Missile. The primary weapon fueling the arms races, nuclear scares, and xenophobia that marked the Cold War. The ICBM, first appearing in the 1950s, has the capability to attack at intercontinental ranges. Early ICBMs were simple, basically giant guided rockets with a single nuclear warhead, but modern ICBMs (Most of which are still in service and active use in the United States, Russia, Kazakhstan, France, the UK, China, and with shorter-range weapons existing for India, Pakistan, and speculated for Iran and North Korea) have greater range, accuracy, and payload capacity. The Russian SS-18, for example, can carry one twenty-five megaton (The explosive power of twenty-five _million_ tons of TNT explosive) warhead or an unconfirmed set of ten individually-targeted five-hundred kiloton (five hundred _thousand_ tons of TNT) warheads.

**Ring-laser Gyroscope**: Just as Mark explained it, the ring-laser gyroscope takes the angular sensitivity of a regular mechanical gyroscope and eliminates the friction. There are no moving parts involved, just a sensor system to detect the angular motion of a laser. In a guidance system, an RLG will send signals to thrusters, fins, engines, or other mechanisms in order to correct course, heading, speed, etc. It is a fairly sophisticated system and a by-product of laser science. Basic RLGs were not developed until the late 1970s. A Whispered would _have_ to be present to develop one at such a stage in the mid-1960s. To build one small enough for an Arm Slave... well... we'll have to see about that.

**MARSUPIAL **(Fictional, as far as I know): Mechanized Automated Retrieval, Surveillance Utility, Protracted Intelligence Acquisition Liaison. The MARSUPIAL system was designed as an autonomous intelligence-gathering system to go where humans cannot and function longer unsupported. The MARSUPIAL system is configurable and programmable; it can be anything in sizes between a large lemur and a blue whale. All that is needed is enough space within the units to collect and transmit information. Here, we see it in a kangaroo form factor. The mama kangaroo functions as an eavesdropping device for radio signals, whereas the joey works for audiovisual surveillance as well as a communication device. Interfacing with most auditory, seismic, and radio transmission systems that MITHRIL operates, the MARSUPIAL system can be customized and built to any specification. It officially carries a different technical designation, but an enterprising technician coined the colloquial designation after seeing it in action during testing in the Australian desert.

**MITHEUR**: MITHRIL European Command. Headquarters: beneath the Palazzo Farnese restaurant in Rome, Italy. Responsible for all land and sea operations from Iceland in the west to the East German border in the east, MITHEUR is frequently more concerned with the tracking, interception, and interdiction of Soviet and Warsaw Pact espionage operations transiting to the NATO and unaligned countries. However, MITHEUR maintains massive stockpiles of weapons and hardened infrastructure throughout Western Europe to deploy in the case of a more serious attack.

Despite the potential clash between East and West, MITHEUR still maintains first-class infiltration and espionage operations. Most major human intelligence that flows in from NATO and the Warsaw Pact comes in by virtue of the fact that MITHRIL agents are prevalent in all the major intelligence services and militaries on both sides of the Iron Curtain. From the American CIA through the ruthless Bulgarian Special Intelligence Service all the way up the ranks of the KGB, MITHRIL has all sides covered. MITHEUR postings are among the more dangerous in this respect.

MITHEUR uses the phonetic alphabet (Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, etc.) in assigning call signs.


	5. Eyes I Dare Not Meet in Dreams

_**4: Eyes I Dare Not Meet in Dreams**_

_**

* * *

**_

**September 5th, 1981  
128 kilometers northwest of Samangan, Afghanistan  
2:17 PM local time**

The three-man _spetsnaz_ detachment had uncovered him as he moved from the abandoned wreckage of a crashed Mi-24 Hind helicopter to a barely-identifiable, burned-out hulk. It was strange for a _mudjehedeen_ to move alone; this tactic was not unfamiliar to the soldiers, though, often having led to enemy ambushes in the past.

This time, though, a buck private from Almaty had overwatch for the fire team. His grandfather had taught him hunting in the snowy Kazakh taiga, and his eyes were adept to detecting movement of white-furred creatures against a white background. The tan of the craggy Afghan hinterlands and their accompanying enemies' camouflage was little different. The private whistled a birdcall, bringing the soldiers to a halt.

Theirs was a normal long-duration patrol. Far under a rocky outcropping, the Kholm-to-Konduz highway passed through a dry riverbed region, making for a hotly contested strip of asphalt running near the border of Afghanistan and the Tadzhik Soviet Socialist Republic. Soviet troops pushed back Afghan _mudjehedeen_ guerilla fighters, the _mudje_ raided Soviet convoys, and Soviet troops deployed to eradicate the guerillas in a cycle that had repeated itself at a steady pace for two years so far. The _spetsnaz_ soldiers, the very best of the Soviet elite troops, were perfectly suited for long-term reconnaissance and patrol missions out in the Afghan mountains.

"What do you have, Danilenko?" the platoon's sergeant, a tough-looking Georgian named Kadashvili, asked quietly as he came up behind the private.

"I saw movement around that shelled-out BRDM at eleven o'clock, down on the slope of that hill, seven hundred meters," the private pulled out a pair of binoculars. "One _mudje_; he's carrying a Dragunov and has an RPG on his back."

The sergeant followed suit with his own binoculars, letting out a low, impressed whistle. "He's setting up camp. Looks like he's going to take up a sniping position facing east. Good spotting, Danilenko. Stay down."

"_Da, __tovarisch._"

The sergeant ran back in a crouch to the third member of their fire team, a radioman. His bulky old R-123M radio had seen much service in the rocky Afghan hills and mountains, having many parts swapped out and repaired over time. Designed for ruggedness, the R-123M could only reach about ten kilometers, maybe twenty on a good day. Fortunately, sergeant Kadashvili only needed to reach less than two klicks back. The radioman handed over the telephone-like radio handset.

"Red Bird to Nest Egg, over."

"Nest Egg. Go ahead, Red Bird," a deep, crackly voice responded from the earpiece.

"We have one leaf on the ground, don't know if any more are falling."

"I'll be right there."

"Acknowledged. Red Bird out."

"Orders, sergeant?" private Danilenko asked as the sergeant trotted back up.

"The lieutenant is coming up," Kadashvili patted the private on the shoulder. "Just relax, Danilenko. We may have a chance to take him alive."

"Prisoners?" the private asked. "Comrade sergeant, what would we do with him when we capture him?"

Kadashvili smiled, his wry grin an unfamiliar sight on his leathery features. "You haven't been under the lieutenant for long enough," he said almost rhetorically. "That man would be luckier as his captive than fighting against him."

"_Da,_ comrade sergeant," Danilenko blinked. There was clear confusion over his near-Mongolian face.

"You'll understand soon enough."

There was a quiet sound of boots on loose dirt and stone from behind the two men a few minutes later.

"What do we have?" a near-whisper asked from behind them.

"Still the one, comrade lieutenant," Sergeant Kadashvili peered through his binoculars towards their right flank. "I haven't seen any movement in any directions. He really does look alone."

"Hmm..." Lieutenant Andrey Sergeivich Kalinin lifted up his own olive-drab military binoculars, looking around in a low crouch. Their tan pattern camouflage concealed them well enough against the rocky terrain; the _mudje_ was facing the wrong direction in any case.

Kalinin nodded, setting down the binoculars. "He's a spotter," the lieutenant explained, adjusting the black beret that sat atop his shaggy, ill-cropped, sandy brown hair. "I saw a field radio, but it's not one of ours, nor one of the Americans'."

"Maybe they're getting them from India?"

"No, India gets them from us." Kalinin shrugged off the strap of his AKM rifle, unfolding the stock and taking up the weapon in a combat grip. "Sergeant, bring Danilenko up and have Kuyvishev stand ready on the PKM. We're taking him alive. Shoot to injure only, but keep in mind that we'll have to carry him back with us."

"_Da,_ comrade lieutenant." Kadashvili whistled a different birdcall, and their radioman came forward, hefting a PKM heavy machine gun. He had one hand hefted under the weapon, carrying it along, and one hand holding down the ammo belt to prevent its metallic _chink-chink-chink_ noise from giving away their position.

"Kuyvishev," Kalinin turned to the radioman as he folded down the bipod of the machine gun. "You deploy one hundred fifty meters to the south. It'll put you within his viewing range, so time your movements carefully. He can barely see around the corner of the BRDM, but he's bound to be looking. Lay down covering fire, but don't aim directly at him."

"Right away, comrade lieutenant!" Kuyvishev set off stealthily to the south.

"Danilenko, you approach around the far end of the BRDM from the north and wait for me. I will approach him from the west and you from the north. Kadashvili, back me up." Kalinin pulled back the charging handle on his AKM assault rifle, chambering a bullet and cocking the gas-powered rifle's mechanism. "Watch your fire and stay out of Kuyvishev's arc. I want all of us back alive; I will not risk anyone's lives over the capture of one Helmaj."

"You really think he's one, comrade lieutenant?" Danilenko asked enthusiastically, hefting up his own AKM. "We were briefed that they weren't operating this far west."

Kalinin narrowed his eyes. "If I had no reason to suspect him, I would not risk your lives by attempting a capture. You would already have shot him dead if he was another _mudjehedeen._"

Danilenko nodded vigorously.

"Let's go."

In a manner of minutes, the four _spetsnaz_ troops had come within thirty meters of the wrecked scout car. Kalinin could see the barrel of the Dragunov sniper rifle facing south, towards the highway, still not even moving. He met Sergeant Kadashvili's eyes; the lieutenant held up a fist, pumped it down, and flashed two fingers.

The sergeant nodded; he picked up a stray handful of pebbles. With a mighty heave, he threw the pebbles in a far arc, landing to the front and left of the _mudje_. Kalinin couldn't see the man's reaction, but the barrel of the sniper rifle pointed upwards, just slightly enough, for him to know that the man had pulled down on the butt of the weapon to look left at the source of the sudden noise. He was looking up, away from the gun.

Kuyvishev opened up on his PKM, the repeated _krackakrackakracka_ of 7.62mm sustained fire echoing throughout the wide valley. He was skillful, firing on the position not thirty feet away from Kalinin but making sure that every bullet impacted on the broken armor of the wrecked BRDM or the rocks near the cratered scout car.

Between the _spang_ sounds of bullets crashing into the BRDM, Kalinin yelled out a hoarse "MOVE!" With one single movement, Kalinin moved in from the side of the scout car's burned hulk, rifle shouldered and pointing downwards at the man. Kadashvili had already climbed on top and taken up a cover position from the roof of the car, angling dangerously downwards. Danilenko came around to cover the other side of the man.

"Don't move! Put your hands up!" Kalinin shouted both in local Pashtun and Dari Persian, pointing his AKM aggressively at the man's head.

"Yatalarivy kadparuni!" the man exclaimed, fear in his face. He got up from his belly-down position with the rifle at his knees, holding his hands over his head. "Bakiri, bakiri! Starijush bakiri vilayas!"

"Pashtun? Do you speak Pashtun?" Kalinin asked in that language. Seeing nothing but a look of fear in the man's eyes, Kalinin pulled him to his feet, kicked the Dragunov away, detached the RPG rocket launcher from his back, and beckoned to Kadashvili and Danilenko. "Kadashvili, go bring Kuyvishev up. He knows Baluchi and some Hindu. Danilenko, you're from Almaty; does this sound anything like Kazakh?"

The young private shook his head. "Nothing like Uzbek or Tadzhik either, comrade lieutenant, but some of it seems familiar. Like a bit of Kazakh, Tadzhik, even Pashtun and Dari from a few of the words."

Kalinin narrowed his eyes. "You're a strange one," he said to the Helmaj in Russian.

"Jikhamata livorwazun?" the man angrily shouted. "Mirvarisha watshukil!"

Kalinin shook his head as the man kept ranting at him. Kadashvili jogged up a moment later with Kuyvishev in tow.

"Comrade Kuyvishev, do you recognize this?" Kalinin gestured with a thumb over his shoulder at the ranting man.

Kuyvishev thought for a moment, but only a short one. His eyes lit up in recognition. "Kalamaji dakhvali?" he asked the man.

The _mudjehedeen_ suddenly stopped speaking angrily. He blinked, turning to the source of the words, and after seeing the blond-haired Russian speaking at him, spat on the ground. "Kakhtari Roosian!" he growled. "Yadmal gafdhaka!"

"Did you understand that, comrade corporal?" Kadashvili asked.

"Partially, comrade sergeant," Kuyvishev responded. "He was speaking what sounds like Kalama, a minority dialect of Feyzan. It's spoken only in the northeast; that's the same region where the Helmaj are operating out of."

Kalinin nodded. "So he _is_ one of the Helmaj. Call in a chopper, Kuyvishev, this one should have plenty to talk about when we take him back to camp."

"Immediately, comrade lieutenant!" Kuyvishev knelt near a rock and dialed in a new frequency on his radio.

"No, wait just a minute, comrade. Put the radio down for now. Can you translate into Kalama for a few sentences?"

"I can try, comrade lieutenant. Chances are good he also understands regular Feyzan."

"Good." Kalinin reached into a pocket on his pistol belt, unfolding a photo that had seen one unfolding too many. It was a battered old black-and-white print, the best a Soviet combat photographer could muster. "Ask him if he knows who this is."

"Yadavarta rechustalvish?" the radioman asked as Kalinin held up the photograph to the _mudje._

"Rechusta?" the _mudje_ laughed. "Helmajin helmaj, sagurvasti! Khau'ron istivi helmaj!"

"He said 'Do I know? This is the king of kings, our savior; this is the dragon of all kings,'" Kuyvishev said by means of translation. "I recognized most of it as regular Kalama, but the word 'khau'ron' sounds like it might be a dialectical creation. "Khaloron" is Feyzan for 'dragon,' so that's the best I can think of. Otherwise, it looks like the Intel briefing paid off, comrade lieutenant."

"Indeed it did." Kalinin narrowed his eyes as he looked at the photo.

The face in the picture was a lean, young one, clean-shaven and narrow. It was almost Asian in terms of skin tone and the shape of his eyes, but it wasn't the face that secretly worried Kalinin.

The other soldiers weren't cleared in on all of the briefings. The KGB colonel had informed Kalinin that the giant metal head and shoulders on which the Asian-looking man stood matched nothing that they knew from either the Soviet Union or America.

"I want that chopper here in twenty minutes," Kalinin ordered.

"_Da,_ comrade lieutenant!" Kuyvishev saluted and unslung the heavy radio from his back. He knelt to tune in a repeater frequency back to their base outside the city of Konduz, pressing the ear-cup of the bulky headphones close to his ear with his free left hand.

"Private Danilenko, search this man for weapons. Sergeant, do we have anything to bind him with?" Kalinin asked, tossing his head in the Helmaj's direction.

"We've got rope, comrade lieutenant, but I'm hesitant to use it." Kadashivili didn't look Kalinin in the eyes; instead, he kept his AKM pointed at the Helmaj soldier's head as Danilenko patted him down. "Even if comrade Danilenko doesn't find anything, it'd be too easy for him to get out. All we have is thick-gauge for tying down our field tents."

"Danilenko, anything on him?"

"Just this, comrade lieutenant," Danilenko replied, holding up an ornately patterned dagger.

"Interesting..." Kalinin looked the dagger over. He turned to Kuyvishev, but his impromptu translator was mapping out their location to a communications officer back at their base.

"May I see this?" he asked the Helmaj in Dari Persian.

"Roosi dakhav," the Helmaj spat back angrily.

"I'd rather ask your permission," Kalinin explained in as polite a voice he could muster. "If you can't understand me, or if you don't want us using it, that's fine. This looks important, so I'd rather not disrespect it."

"Roosi dakhav, zakharvod!"

Kalinin met his eyes, lowering his AKM on its strap. He crouched down on the balls of his feet, not even saying a word.

"Vertizal takarat khau'ron," the Helmaj finally said, slightly less hostile. "Tekat sarzalja kitlajara."

Kalinin extended his hand towards the dagger, stopping short of taking it. He looked once again at the Helmaj, who nodded.

Kalinin took up the dagger; it was coppery, carrying some minor patina from age. He was no mineral scientist, but he knew enough basic chemistry to place this dagger at almost a hundred years old. Its ornately carved design looked like a ceremonial sword he had once seen in the Hermitage, a gift to Khrushchev from the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic; the inlaid carvings carried a motif of spiraling winds emanating from the mouth and claws of some lizard-like creature. There was a border of lapis and gold around the edges of the sheath and handle, and it had quillon-like protrusions that looked like they could effectively parry a small blade.

"It looks like it came from a mosque..." Kalinin spoke to himself, holding the dagger in the light. "A blend of central Asian styles. I wish I knew more." He partially unsheathed the blade, holding it at a high angle to catch the sunlight. "This is an incredibly well cared for dagger, I will say that much," Kalinin remarked on seeing the unblemished, visibly sharp cutting edge. He sheathed the dagger and placed it back in the Helmaj's hands. "_Spasiba,_" he said. "Thank you."

"Comrade lieutenant! Why are you-"

"Comrade sergeant, we know little about the Helmaj, but there's one thing to be said about all weapons," Kalinin stood up and tossed his AKM over his back. "If you had a rugged combat knife and a one-of-a-kind ceremonial dagger, which would you rather sully with blood in anything but a ritual situation?"

"But comrade lieutenant, we cannot let him remain armed!"

"Comrade Kadashvili, I do not question your prudence and caution; however, as it stands, we have nothing with which to securely contain him," Kalinin shook his head. "He may be a prisoner, but I will not be the one to strip him of his dignity. We will, of course, strip him of weapons he would actually use."

"As you say, comrade lieutenant, but I must protest that you are returning that knife to him."

"Your protest is noted, comrade. Any luck, comrade corporal?"

"Konduz Base is sending us a Hip to pick us up," Kuyvishev reported as he set the headphones back in their securing clasps. "It'll be here in a half hour and it'll look for green smoke. We're keeping him at Konduz until they can fly him out to Kandahar, though."

"To Kandahar?" Kadashvili shook his head. "That poor bastard. They must be desperate to drip him dry of all the blood and information he has in his body."

"Comrade Kuyvishev, who did you speak to at Konduz Base?" Kalinin narrowed his eyes, setting himself down on one knee next to the radioman.

"The communications watch officer was Captain Andreyev, and when he heard that we had a Helmaj, he patched Colonel Varshevsky in on the line, who gave me the orders."

"Varshevsky?" Kalinin chuckled. "That spunky little _zampolit_ is involved now?"

"_Da,_ comrade lieutenant."

"We'll set up a security perimeter around this wreck," Kalinin called out to his assembled men. "I'll stay back and cover our prisoner. Comrade Kadashvili, coordinate an overwatch with Private Danilenko on the overhangs to the north and south," Kalinin pointed out some rocky outcroppings where the soldiers would keep an eye out for movement on the ground. "Kuyvishev, you take up watch on the other side of the BRDM and keep your eyes peeled for the Hip. Those damn helicopters are huge enough to get shot down by some lucky bastard with a pistol."

"Right away, comrade lieutenant!" The men dashed off to their positions.

Kalinin sat down next to the Helmaj, looking at the man. The prisoner didn't look at Kalinin; he was focused on the ceremonial dagger in his hands, whispering something in his indecipherable native language. He didn't fear from an attack from the man, but he kept one hand on his AKM, just in case; he dangled it loosely from his knees, firmly grasping the wooden pistol grip.

_Misha Il'ych, what do you want with this man?_ Kalinin thought, rubbing his stubble-encrusted chin idly. _What is so important that this Helmaj must go to Kandahar?_

**To be continued... **

**Glossary:**

_**Spetsnaz**:_ An acronym for the Russian term "Voiska spetsialnogo naznacheniya," or "special forces detachment." Among the most skilled and trained of all unconventional warfare troops, the _spetsnaz_ special forces were the pride of the Soviet Red Army. Trained to operate behind enemy lines for extended periods of time with minimal support, _spetsnaz_ commandos were tasked with being the tip of the spear in wartime. They were originally developed to penetrate deep into NATO territory, with the aim of infiltrating and destroying the critical military infrastructure that NATO maintained to stave off a massive Warsaw Pact assault in Europe, largely considered to be the onset of the Third World War. During the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, the _spetsnaz_ were deployed widely to counter _mudjehedeen_ guerillas with brutal, intimidating tactics. _Spetsnaz_ commandos reportedly cut off ears and fingers of _mudjehedeen,_ trying to frighten them from fighting with such devilish imagery. Needless to say, the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in the late 1980s demonstrated that such tactics did not work against the dedicated _mudjehedeen._

_**Mudjehedeen**:_ Also spelled _mujāhidīn_, _mujahedeen_, _mujahedin_, _mujahidin_, _mujaheddin,_ etc. Arabic for "struggler" in the sense of struggling for jihad. During the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, _mudjehedeen_ were loosely-organized, often militantly Islamic groups that were directly sponsored, trained, and supplied by the United States. They were referred to be U.S. president Ronald Reagan as "freedom fighters... defending principles of independence and freedom that form the basis of global security and stability." Their employment of guerilla tactics and terrain-based warfare was legendary against the Soviets. We can assume that Sousuke Sagara fought with a _mudjehedeen_ group during the time he was in Helmajistan.

**AKM**: The AKM, developed from the AK-47 assault rifle, is a shortened, improved version of the –47. It was and still is widely used by the Russian military today.

**PKM**: A Soviet infantry machine gun. It is fed by the same ammunition as the AKM, AK-47, and lighter PK machine guns. It is capable of high cyclic rates and is rather hard to maintain, but very accurate.

**MITHCENT**: MITHRIL Central Command. Headquarters: 2-17 Yehuda Hayamit, Tel Aviv, Israel. MITHCENT is, bar none, the most active command in all of MITHRIL during the timeframe of The Hollow Men. Responsible for the Mediterranean Sea, Indian Ocean, and the entire Middle East from Turkey in the northwest to Afghanistan in the east, MITHCENT is a highly diversified command geared almost entirely towards small, covert operations.

MITHCENT brings in agents and mercenaries from a wide swath of backgrounds, all geared towards infiltration and long-term operations with minimal equipment. MITHCENT agents have been responsible for slowing down the Israeli nuclear weapons programs in the late 1960s, culminating with a ground raid on an Israeli air base to prevent a nuclear air raid from launching during the '67 Six-Day War. Furthermore, MITHCENT has successfully infiltrated terrorist groups such as Black September, Hezbollah, Hamas, and the radical wing of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine; they have also placed agents within the higher structures of the secretive Israeli intelligence agency, the Mossad. Additionally, MITHCENT agents were behind the assassination of weapons designer Gerald Bull in Brussels in 1990. He was in the process of designing an artillery cannon with a 500 kilometer range with a secondary capability to launch small objects into low earth orbit. (**A/N:** Gerald Bull was a real person and the cannons he worked on were real. His assassination, however, has never been conclusively linked to anyone or any organization...)

MITHCENT does not have call signs per se; instead, their code names are assigned randomly from Arabic and Hebrew phrases, depending on the operative and his/her assignment.


	6. Such Deliberate Disguises

**A/N**: Many thanks to Lakewood for his exceptional beta work. I can't stress enough how he's helped this fanfic turn from the sharpness of an old sword into the quality and precision of a medical scalpel. As he puts it so eloquently, a thousand words of thanks, Lakewood.

At this point, I should let you all know that most of these chapters are written two at a time. I tend to get really verbose when I write and I do so bulky, so I've been trying to keep things ten pages at a time so you don't have to read it forever. The longer chapters will be long when they need to be, though.

Best thing about writing at work? During the downtimes, I just iPod up a bunch of inspirational tracks... at some point, I'm going to throw together a playlist of all the actiony FMP! songs and stuff from Metal Gear Solid OSTs, some Hans Zimmer and Harry Gregson-Williams, etc. to get me in the proper mood. Nothing beats writing the MITHRIL sequences when I've got the music from when Sousuke gets prepped to leave the Tuatha de Danaan for Jindai High playing. Very "Let's get ready!" and inspiring-ish.

My neck has been really stiff and painful lately... I was kinda up on my head during a backward roll practice last Thursday, and I guess I put a little too much stress on it. It was stiff all weekend and pretty painful to move yesterday and today... blech.

On with the show!

* * *

_**5: Such Deliberate Disguises**_

_**

* * *

**_

**September 5th, 1981  
MITHPAC Headquarters  
Sydney, Australia  
9:45 PM local time**

Mark stepped around the first row of cots laid out in the MITHRIL commissary/overflow sleeping quarters. The commencement of Operation SIGNET RING had drawn in personnel from branch offices all throughout the Asia-Pacific, even some from MITHLANT in Rome and MITHCENT in Tel Aviv; the resulting sea of humanity needed places to eat and sleep.

"Oh, 'scuse me," he apologized, stepping over the legs of a senior corporal from Photointelligence who was trying to stretch out on his old steel-frame cot. A few more twists and turns through the packed quarters, with cots laid out barely a foot apart, brought him up to the commissary's drink machines.

"Man, why'd we have to get stuck on the night shift," Mark asked a young SRT sergeant who was hanging out by the coffee machine.

"I hear that," the SRT troop quipped. "You're in Intel, right? How come they haven't put you guys out in the field?"

"Same to you! You're with Fehu team, right? Aren't you supposed to be on alert at Merida?"

"Nah, they sent me here to liaise with you guys."

"Curtis Marqata, but my friends call me Mark."

"I'm McAllen. John McAllen." They shook hands. "Hey, you gave that briefing, right? They probably took you down for some R&R time after shuttling around about the Leapfrog."

"I should be so lucky," Mark scoffed. "My partner and I are supposed to be on-call for a covert deployment at some point. We're both SRT-qualified, but neither of us got the invite to sign on. Y'all are probably hoarding all the good troops so that you don't gotta deal with newbies."

"We try our best," McAllen grinned. "I actually just got back from Merida. Working with the specs on what you guys brought back is making us tear our hair out to develop a countermeasure."

"Yeah? Come up with anything?"

McAllen's grin turned into a slanted grimace. "Wish I could tell you we did, but those worst-case figures have us really nervous." He leaned in, speaking in a low tone. "I'll tell you this since you and your partner probably know more than General Sachar right now: if it can dodge and move like you projected, it's a cast-iron bitch to even shoot at. We rigged up a small high-speed pneumatic rail system, just sideways movement at the approximate leap and walk speeds, right? Recoilless rifles will reach, but only because they're man-portable. Anti-tank missiles are useless. Tank guns can't rotate fast enough. Machine guns probably won't be able to dent the damn thing. Before I left, they'd started to test out tracking it with those new Apaches. Those at least did the trick, but I'm willing to bet the Leapfrogs will be able to swat 'em out of the sky in five seconds."

Mark shook his head. "Just great. We've got the best of what's new, old, and still in freakin' development from _both_ sides of the Iron Curtain and nothing does anything. I hope to God we've overestimated."

"'Plan for the worst, hope for the best,'" McAllen quoted, sipping at his coffee.

Mark poured himself a cup of MITHRIL's legendary brew. "Honestly, what worries me most is NAPA VALLEY." He stirred in his usual packet and a half of sugar, cupping the mug in his hands to warm them. "When I saw that signature on the computer, I wanted to look over my shoulder. I didn't know if he'd have a rifle trained on my head, a bomb at the end of the message... I mean, hell, I can hack my way into anything and even put together a motherboard from silicon chips, solder, and chewing gum. I _know_ my electronics, bro. But when I saw that, I thought that the computer was about to blow up and kill me. NAPA fuckin' VALLEY, man." Mark shook his head. "I never felt so out of control in my life, seein' that name up there."

"I hear that." McAllen nodded. "NAPA VALLEY literally wrote the SRT training manual back in the early seventies. It's filled to the brim with everything we do... unarmed combat, hostage negotiation, first aid... if he catches us in our own game, I could lose an entire combat team."

"To think it had to happen to my partner, too..." Mark sighed. "Kenji and NAPA VALLEY... they got a history."

"Moriyama, right? Hell, NAPA's probably the one who'll be shaking if he has to face Kenji down. His entire body's a collection of lethal weapons from any direction. I only wish I had the time to learn some of his techniques."

"You seen him, anyway?" Mark asked. "We're supposed to be on shift in the command center in fifteen minutes."

"Yeah, I passed by the gym on my way here. I was just coming off shift in the armory. He was practicing with someone. Didn't see who."

"Oh, practicing?" Mark raised an eyebrow and turned down the collar on his trademark denim jacket, adjusting the turtleneck sweater he wore under it. "Betcha ten bucks he ain't practicin' no kung fu, my brotha," he finished off in ebonics.

"Heh. You're all the Richard Roundtree we need around here, Mark," McAllen clapped the taller man on the shoulder.

"I'm out, bro. Nice meeting ya, McAllen," Mark shook his hand, shifting his coffee mug to his left.

MITHRIL maintained a small gymnasium within its compound for recreation and training purposes. All manner of mats, practice gear, and athletic equipment were out, but there were no half-court basketball games or racquetball matches going on at this hour. Mark passed by two fencing strips—one with two Italian-style epee fencers practicing, another with two people working on kendo—and past a set of unmanned weight machines before he came up to the quieter half of the gym.

Mark set down his coffee, stepped out of his shoes, and bowed towards the small altar at the edge of the gym's dojo. He stepped in and sat down on his knees, back respectfully straight, not saying anything as he watched Kenji practice with his partner.

She was several inches taller than Kenji, with her athletic build concealed somewhat under her gi and hakama; her dark chestnut hair was tied back, conveniently out of the way. Kenji was directly opposite her, left foot back and pointing to the side, right foot forward, in a basic hanmi pose, holding out his right hand. The taller woman grabbed his wrist, her stormy gray eyes meeting Kenji's, and in one swift motion, Kenji had stepped to her left and brought her arm directly backwards, twisting her hand into a lock. He stepped forward, extending his free left hand across her neck, and bent his knees gently.

She fell easily to the mats, with Kenji holding her down, until she tapped the mat with her free hand. He released the lock, she got up, and they repeated it with his left hand.

"You really are a fast learner," she remarked through her thick Middle Eastern accent between rapid breaths after taking another fall.

"I've been meaning to incorporate aikido into my routines," Kenji wiped his perspiring forehead off with the sleeve of his gi. "I have too many actual styles of fighting, but little in the means of throws and locks."

"I feel like I don't even need to teach you anything," she said, entering into a series of cool-down stretches. "All you need to do is keep practicing."

"I will," Kenji replied, stretching himself out, suddenly spotting Mark out of the corner of his eye. "I take it you're not here for aikido, Mark?"

"Seems like you two're doing enough aikido for the both of us," he grinned. "How long you been down here?"

"Far too long," the woman grinned wryly, a sparkle in her eyes. "It took plenty of time to get your partner to stop being so tense while he practices."

"It takes time to get him to stop bein' tense in the field, too," Mark joked, standing up and leaning back against the wall. "I didn't know you were back, Gef."

"Can you believe they cut me loose?" Her grin transformed into a smile.

Sergeant Major Gefen ben Lebedov—'Gef' to everyone except her grandparents—strode up to Mark and gave him a quick hug.

"Everything calmed down in the Black September cell in Haifa before the Mossad came in to spoil the party. I even recognized some of my old squadmates from the Army who came crashing through the doors."

"No shit? Mossad came down on you guys? Rough luck."

"Rough luck!" The Israeli laughed, pulling out her hair tie. Although sweaty, her chin-length hair never seemed to degrade her attractive, trim face despite the thin scar on her cheek. "You're betting your ass it was rough luck!"

"It's 'you bet your ass,' Gef," Kenji corrected, finishing his stretches. He bowed to the dojo altar, stepping off the mat and into his shoes.

"Whatever it is, it is," she scoffed, bowing and stepping off the mat as well.

"Kenji, when you've got time, do some calming stretches, some breathing exercises. You're tenser than steel. Here!" She thrust her hands down onto his shoulders, pressing into them a little. Kenji grabbed her wrists by reflex, but before he could disengage from the hold he was anticipating, Lebedov had lightened her grasp.

"I'm going to give you a massage, Kenji, whether you want it or not," she laughed mischievously, rubbing the tips of her fingers into the fleshy parts of his shoulders. "I swear, you're going to pull something and it'll cripple you! To think that all the martial arts you know haven't gotten you to simply go with the flow."

"Oh, I'm 'a get him with the flow," Mark chuckled, suddenly mimicking a stereotypical black inner-city voice. "We gonna kick back with some Colt .45 and some Curtis Mayfield, and he be flowin 'fore you know it!"

Kenji sighed, but he smiled a little. "Gef, it'll have to wait. Mark and I are due in the command center soon."

"So am I." She untied the belt of her hakama, stepping out of the broad, skirt-like pants to air out her legs. Hakama, worn over a gi, tended to disguise one's leg movements, but they made for an extra layer that one normally didn't need during a workout. "Meet you outside? I need a shower."

"Sounds good."

"Yeah, see ya' outside," Mark mock-saluted as she headed for the women's locker rooms. Both men watched her leave, then Mark suddenly had his partner in a full-Nelson.

"Yo, why didn't you _tell_ me you were down here with Gef!" he laughed, pulling Kenji's arms behind him rather painfully. "Yo, man, she teach you any moves to get outta _this_?" The tall black man kept laughing as he hefted Kenji up into the air, four inches off the ground. "You's one heavy mo'fo!" he lapsed back into ebonics again. "Day-am, Kenji, you been' snackin' on pig iron!"

Mark's laughs were cut short as Kenji kicked his legs forward, then quickly backward, sliding backwards between Mark's combat-stanced legs and behind him, instantly free of the hold. Kenji quickly flipped Mark face-down onto the floor, commanding his right arm in a vicious lock.

"Okay, okay, I give, I give!" Mark winced as Kenji pressed the arm-lock further. "Dang, she's one helluva teacher!"

"That she is." Kenji let go of Mark's arm and stepped in front of him, extending a hand to help him back up before he headed off to the locker room.

"Man, you two haven't seen each other in a while, huh?" Mark shouted over the water in Kenji's shower.

"Not since we were all back in Kabul, just before the Soviets invaded," Kenji responded from behind the opaque curtain. "That was back in '79. She told me about going in with some of the _mudjehedeen_ when the Americans started to send in small batches of test equipment. You remember how we were about to call in an air strike to cut off the supply lines they were feeding in from the Pakistani border, right?"

"That was when they had those air skirmishes over Lahore. Other side of the country, man."

"Well, that was the Americans sneaking in their first round of Stingers and M-16s. Turns out the Pakistanis were running interference. We couldn't go up against them."

"Yeah, I remember how I was back at the base for most of that operation," Mark grumbled. "A black man can't get no justice in Afghanistan."

"Maybe you should have told them you were Louis Farrakhan."

"Ouch, bro!" Mark laughed. "It was no fun pulling out, for sure. MITHRIL coulda stopped the entire Soviet advance force if we'd stuck around and sent in the Harriers."

"No place to send 'em in from. The _Valley Mistress_ was still in the Red Sea. So yeah, we pulled out, the Soviets took over, and Gef went back to MITHCENT. She's busted up Black September cells like nobody's business." There was a squeak as Kenji turned the shower faucets off. One stocky arm reached out for a towel, and Mark handed it to him.

"Too bad we're on lockdown. You guys could go for a nice romantic evening. Sydney Opera House, man! Sydney Opera House!"

"That's as inappropriate as it gets for a fellow enlisted officer," Kenji responded. He emerged from the shower, all dried off, with the MITHRIL-logo towel wrapped around his waist. "Mark, you don't quite get the fact that Sergeant Major Lebedov and I are purely professional about our relationship."

"What relationship?" Mark rolled his eyes. "You never even think about women, do you, Kenji?"

"I'd rather not." Kenji went to a locker and retrieved his uniform, the MITHRIL-issue khakis with his name and rank badges on them. "Aren't you going to change?"

"Mark Marqata doesn't change for the tides, my brother," he scoffed, running a hand through his fro.

"What about for the Command Center?"

"Command? Command can have me runnin' laps after SIGNET RING is over. This is a five hundred dollar jacket!" Mark bragged, turning up the wide lapels. "Original Versace!"

"Suit yourself." Kenji stepped behind a wall to change, emerging fresh in his pressed uniform. "Ready?"

"Yeah, let's go clock in."

"What's taking you guys so long?" Lebedov's voice called from the hall. "We're supposed to be on shift in ten minutes!"

**Outside Konduz, Afghanistan  
11:40 PM local time**

The Soviet base camp was a hastily-constructed, but well-organized, cluster of steel prefabricated shelters, tents, medical and barracks facilities, and even a motor pool that could accommodate half a regiment of tanks or armored vehicles. The near-constant takeoff, refueling, landing, and re-arming of powerful, swift Mi-24 Hind and bulky Mi-8 Hip helicopters had the entire base in a constant low-grade sand storm. The air blew a dark, opaque haze of all the dust and dirt, forcing unnecessary personnel to stay inside during intensive operations.

Kalinin's _spetsnaz_ detachment was lucky enough to get a building with a solid roof, a small steel-walled medical tent that wasn't being used at the time. The stone-faced regimental surgeon had informed them that they were to clear out the moment a casualty came in, but the doctor wasn't fooling anyone with the intimidation he tried to put into his eyes. He left with a pitying stare, looking Kalinin straight in the sandy-hazel eyes. _You will be either the cause or the savior of many victims with what you brought back,_ the look said. _Tread lightly._

"So what are they going to do with him, comrade lieutenant?" Sergeant Kadashivili asked Kalinin as the four soldiers broke out a deck of military-issue playing cards and a 1.5 liter bottle of completely non-military-issue vodka.

"Only the worst things imaginable," Kalinin said flatly as he lit up a portable burner, setting his canteen over the fire. "The base commander already informed me that the Party has taken great interest in our Helmaji prisoner and will be flying him to Kandahar tomorrow."

Private Danilenko and Corporal Kuyvishev looked up at the mention of Kandahar. The provincial capital of the area by the same name, Kandahar was the KGB's established operational headquarters for Afghanistan. A trip there by anyone lower than the rank of colonel usually meant bad news for that person.

"What are they taking him for?" Danilenko shook his head. "When the Helmaj find out that they have one of their men in captivity, we're going to take the brunt of another raid for sure."

"That's probably why they're taking him to Kandahar," Kuyvishev interjected. "To get him off of the front lines... and to keep the heat on us up here."

"Enough, you two," Sergeant Kadashvili snapped. "We've been given orders that need to be followed. That should be enough for young bucks like yourself."

"Of course, comrade sergeant!" Danilenko eagerly replied. "But still... if we can barely talk to him, how will a _nekulturniy_ officer be able to interrogate him?"

"They're not going to interrogate him, comrade Danilenko," Kalinin shook his head. "You're correct in assuming they can't speak his language. I'm willing to bet that no Soviet officer even studied basic Pashtun before the invasion began."

"Comrade lieutenant..." Kadashvili said in a cautionary tone.

Kalinin shook his head. "Sergeant Kadashvili, I have been a Soviet soldier since I left the university. I was immediately put in for officer training and have led men ever since. Though I may be a Soviet soldier, I am still a soldier, bound by basic realities in armed combat. One of those is to treat my enemy the same way I would want myself to be treated. I would extend nothing less to a prisoner."

"_Da,_ comrade lieutenant. "Comrade Danilenko, do you want to know what they will do to that Helmaji soldier?"

Kalinin leaned towards the private. The young man's eyes were as dark brown as they came, still a little shiny from having been plucked out of his conscription training and sent to the front in Afghanistan.

"Do you want to know what the KGB will do, even though they cannot understand a word that comes out of his mouth?"

Danilenko was silent, having forgotten all about the flush that Kuyvyshev had dealt him.

"They will string him up by the wrists." Kalinin held his own arms up to demonstrate, his eyes completely neutral. "They will take battery cables and clasp them right to the engine battery from a BMP-1. One cable to each lead. Then, they attach the negative cable to the man's left earlobe."

In a swift motion, Kalinin had reached out and grabbed Danilenko's earlobe, gripping it tight. "Think of it like this, only with razor-sharp metal teeth. Battery clamps are not designed for comfort."

The private was shuddering, half from the shock of the lieutenant's sudden maneuver, the other half from the harsh grip. "W-w-what about the other one?"

"They will ask him where his base is in Russian first," Kalinin continued. "Then, they'll try for Pashtun, Dari Persian, even Arabic. If he's lucky, they'll try some of the other major tribal languages. He will understand absolutely none of it, even though we know he only speaks Kalama, but their tape recorder will be going nonetheless. As he tries to plead for his life, begging to be spared, telling them everything they want to know, he won't be able to ignore the red positive lead. Whoever holds that lead will do so through a thick, insulated rubber glove. This is so our good KGB comrade does not shock himself when he attaches the positive lead to the man's other earlobe, completing the electrical circuit with a voltage running through the man inflicts a pain greater than any he has yet felt in his life."

In another lightning grab, Kalinin had both of Danilenko's earlobes in an iron grip. The private cried out in terror before he realized that he was not being shocked.

The small medical room was silent. On the burner, steam was coming up from Kalinin's canteen. The lieutenant let go of Private Danilenko's ears, wrapped a thick canvas cloth around the boiling hot canteen as not to burn himself, and poured the water into a tin mug, filled with Russian caravan tea leaves.

"But... but comrade lieutenant," Corporal Kuyvyshev ventured. "Isn't it worth it? They'll analyze the tape to find more info about the Helmaj so we can go after them, right?"

"Of course they will." Kalinin gently tilted the mug back and forth to steep the tea. "Eventually, with every Helmaj soldier they capture, they'll have all the more information to finally quell the rogues and pacify that section of the country. There are enough Kalama speakers at the University of Almaty to give us complete translations eventually. We were lucky that you went to the university there and studied the language that spawned it, comrade Kuyvishev. I fear that the KGB has none yet."

"But why such measures?" Danilenko blurted.

"Because our government feels that it is necessary for our security in Afghanistan, which then directly translates into security for our borders and prosperity for the _rodina._" Kalinin leaned back in the metal folding chair in which he sat. "They feel it is important to do this."

The medical tent fell silent. "Is it worth it, comrade corporal," Kalinin asked, "to sacrifice the humanity of even one man for the sake of the Soviet Union? Comrade Danilenko, you are a Kazakh, are you not? Would you want the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic to be known as a state which tortures people?"

Even Sergeant Kadashvili, who was several years older than Kalinin, were held rapt in his calm, strong words.

Kalinin calmly took a sip of his tea. "I've been in Afghanistan since we took the Kabul airport in '79," he mused. "Only now, with the rise of the Helmaj and that mysterious photo, has the KGB become so intent on tearing down every bit of human flesh that stands between them and the man and the apparatus in the photo. For the sake of some new and unknown weapon, and the sake of 'security,'" he almost scoffed, "we are about to deny another man his humanity. In doing so, we become sub-human ourselves."

The silence hung in the medical tent in a visible cloud over all four men. They had killed many who would have easily and quickly killed them in their respective tours of duty, both before and during their duty with Lieutenant Kalinin. Every one of them had come back alive from their missions—sometimes injured, sometimes not—and none had any reason to doubt the man's words. A graduate of the prestigious Moscow State University and of the Frunze Military Academy's officer training program, Kalinin was a man they trusted in the battlefield. Seldom had they considered him in the same sense off of it.

"What should we do, Lieutenant?" Danilenko was the first to ask. Everyone noticed the electricity laden with his words: Danilenko had dropped the "comrade" honorific. It was if the Communist Party's influence, akin to that of an earthly god, had been silently and suddenly evicted from the tent.

"What should you do?" Kalinin asked. "I do not know what you _should_ do. That is something each of you must decide." He sipped at his canteen again, slowly and deliberately, savoring the tart, woody sweetness of the traditional Russian tea. "What I plan to do, however, is to ensure that the Helmaj we captured today be treated humanely and in a dignified manner. I have no reason to believe he would do the same should our positions be switched, but I do not wish for my name to be associated with torture in any way, shape, or form."

Kalinin gulped down the tea, letting out a deep, satisfied breath. "If you will excuse me, comrades," he said, the formality returning to his voice. "I must go see the _zampolit_ about our guest."

Kalinin picked up his AKM and slung it over his back, exiting out the stamped-metal door of his tent. He did not expect to hear anything behind him, but the shuffle of three other soldiers retrieving and strapping down their gear was quickly followed by their footsteps catching up behind him.

**To be continued...**

**A/N/Glossary:**

**_Kulturniy/nekulturniy:_** Russian for "cultured" and "uncultured" respectively. _Kulturniy_ became a watchword for the Soviet Union during the era where Leonid Brezhnev was in power. The aim was to try to match the practices of the Soviet armed services with those of the West by urging them to be "cultured." _Kulturniy_ practices would be nonviolent interrogations and the like; _nekulturniy_ practices would be much, much worse.

**Frunze Military Academy:** The Soviet Army operated under a different structure than most Western military forces. A universal conscription policy was in effect; basically, all men were drafted for four years' service when they turned eighteen, unless they went into university. Starting at the rank of private, it was rare for most men to stay in, but some were selected for sergeant or officer training. Officer training was conducted at the Frunze Academy, where promising cadets were instructed in strategy and tactics, then returned after a long training regimen to their unit. Officers and sergeants shared the burden of the work in a Soviet army platoon; instead of the officer giving orders and the sergeant carrying them out and enforcing unit discipline (As it is in most Western armed forces), the officer was primarily responsible for keeping an eye on unit discipline and rebelliousness. Frunze Academy only taught that as a secondary course, though; its library (Which is still open today) reputedly has over a million books, all on military strategy.

**_Zampolit:_** Soviet political officer. The _zampolit_, usually a ranking colonel or lieutenant colonel, was responsible for ensuring that a Soviet military unit was adhering to Communist Party doctrine and regulation. _Zampolits_ were usually officers of or under the control of the Second Chief Directorate of the KGB, which was responsible for rooting out spies within the Soviet Union. Normally, this would be handled by the GRU—the military intelligence branch of the Soviet Union—but KGB was most often the point of command for most _zampolits_. A _zampolit _was also in charge of overseeing Party meetings and collecting Party dues from their unit. The _zampolit_ was nearly untouchable; he could ruin a military career or even have soldiers and commanders executed on suspicions of spying, treason, etc.


	7. More Distant and More Solemn

**A/N:** Again, big props go out to Lakewood and Anysia for their fantastic beta work. There are few, if any, better author/editors out there.

The time-zone changes might be a little bit off, but I think they're pretty accurate so far. If anyone wants to get detailed and really map 'em out, I'd more than welcome your input. Corrections can be E-mailed to the address in my profile.

Props go out to chibichu from the Full Metal Panic! LJ community for providing me with the Mechwarrior 2 OST. It helped quite a good deal in writing the story; I'm listening to lots of Hans Zimmer and Harry-Gregson Williams to get my juices flowing. I'm not that great at writing action scenes, so hopefully the music will help.

On with the show!

* * *

**_6: More Distant and More Solemn_**

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_**

**September 6th, 1981  
MITHPAC Combat Operations Base**  
**Merida Island, Federated Republic of Micronesia  
10:45 PM**

The sound of a distant machine gun on the firing range echoed across the air-operations tarmac. Already baked after a day under the hot sun, a grease-faced MITHRIL mechanic grimaced at the sound and the constant floodlighting of the hangar.

_I don't need any more distractions,_ the mechanic thought as he twisted a torque wrench under the open instrument array. The bug-like targeting array of the AH-64 Apache attack helicopter lay silent; the gunner was a few feet away in the slender cockpit, waiting for his cue.

"Try it now!" the mechanic called, having finished with the bolt of the targeting servomotor. "It should give you a much faster response."

"Okay, stand clear. Powering on APUs."

The gunner flicked a few switches, enabling external power to flow in from an olive drab-painted auxiliary power cart sitting inside the hangar. His digital indicators and multifunction display powered on, reflecting against the smoked plastic lens of his head-mounted display.

"Engaging TADS. Test protocol active. Ammo belt, negative. Master switch set to safe. Here we go."

He looked up, flicked a switch on his flight stick, and looked directly right. The insectile TADS/PNVS targeting and night-vision array rotated, as did the 30mm chain gun slung under the nose of the helicopter. The entire system was slaved to a sensor that rested in front of the visors of the pilot and gunner. Either could have control over the Apache's weapons, and at this point, the Apache's weapons began to target just a little faster.

The gunner looked left, right, down, and all around. The chain gun and targeting array followed his moves precisely; any directional lag had been adequately programmed out.

"Seems pretty good to me, but we'll need to take her up to test it for sure," the gunner pulled his helmet off, flashing a thumbs-up to the mechanic. "Tell whoever programmed the new software I said thanks."

"Yeah, no problem. You wanna go up armed?"

"No point in it," the gunner shook his head. "All we need is practice for now. There's nothing to live-fire against just yet."

"You think this is going to have to go to Perthro Wing as well?"

"It just might," the gunner said with a shrug, stepping down from his cockpit. "I've seen estimates of what we might go up against. I don't know when or where we'll have to fight it, but the numbers we crunched and the test exercise we ran already cracked down on the fact that we could barely target it."

"No kidding?"

The gunner beckoned the pilot closer. "We got a briefing from MITHPAC HQ the other week talking about what it's supposed to be able to do," he said in a low, quiet voice. "It's supposed to be able to jump at up to a hundred thirty miles per hour and run faster than a tank."

"Wait, you said it could jump? It can _run!_"

"Keep it down!"

"Sorry, sorry!" The mechanic edged in closer to better hear the gunner's low voice.

"All we know is that it was theoretically able to evade an M1. If it can dodge tank rounds, it can probably dodge Hellfires and Zunis as well. At least we can keep it targeted with these new upgrades, though." The gunner patted the still-open instrument access panel. "All we needed to do was tighten down the target optimization code and up the output of the motors, right?"

"Yeah, no sweat." The mechanic tightened down the bolts to secure the instrument bay. "Nothing we can't handle, but having two wings of choppers upgraded will take some time."

"Might as well get started. McAllen'll get the paperwork ramrodded through back in Sydney."

"Sounds good. Wanna go for a beer when we get off?"

"I wish I could, but go on ahead without me. We're practicing night-ops and then we're back on combat standby in the morning. Fehu's taking up the new alert watch and we're supposed to have all the choppers ready by then."

"Geez. Wish I knew what was going on with all this."

**Pennsylvania Avenue, 1200 block  
Washington, DC  
That same time (September 6th, 1981, 4:45 AM local)**

The hot coffee in his hands was fading in its warmth, but not in its effects just yet. The old metal flask traditionally should have had brandy, rum, or some thing to warm the body in a different sense; however, he was smart enough to carry something hot and decaffeinated on a cold autumn night like this. His body was as young as it ever was, still in that accursed state it had been since an unfortunate encounter in Berlin.

_Yeah, it had to be years ago,_ he thought, reflecting on times that he still remembered as vividly as anything. He had to. That damnable accident had left him with an eidetic memory as sharp as a brand-new Nikon.

The repeated _kathunk-kathunk_ noises of underground Metro trains had faded, the last train having departed the Red Line station beneath him hours ago. The streets of Washington were largely empty, cut through only with the occasional Metrobus, car, or fancy limousine, doubtless returning from a very late diplomatic engagement or even heading out to an early one. Taking a swig from his coffee flask, the man allowed himself to daydream for a moment, thinking about the lives of the politicians, ambassadors, lobbyists, movers and shakers alike who rode in the stretch Town Cars and De Villes.

_The fallacies of "real power,"_ he thought with a chuckle.

The shuffle of feet in shoes not made for stealthy movement wasn't that hard to hear from even forty meters, and he wasn't worried about any botched encounters tonight. He never feared for his safety, neither alone, with a group of allies, nor with a group of enemies. He tried his best to keep himself in situations where the latter two did not matter, but in any city, no man could ever be an island.

"We saw it."

The man who passed by him sat down next to him on the bench at the bus stop, lighting a long, thin, brown-wrapped cigarette.

"I didn't think you'd miss it," he replied, reaching within his coat pocket slowly. "Coffee?" He held out his silver flask.

"Thanks." The other man took the flask with his free hand, accepting the warm liquid gratefully. He hadn't been drinking hot fluids that night and was already a little cold because of it, despite his Burberry wool overcoat.

"So you see that they're seriously moving in on it, then," the coffee-bearer continued, leaning back, running his hands through his thick, night-black hair. "You can also see that it's reproducible."

"We already know it's reproducible. Our people have already come up with a prototype."

"But not a means of production."

The stranger was silent.

"They've already set up a factory in Khabarovsk, ostensibly for the construction of the new MiG-29 fighter jet. You're aware of that, too. I know that for a fact." The man with the coffee leaned back on the bench, maybe a little bit arrogantly after one-upping his visitor.

"That close to China?"

"That close to _Vladivostok,_" he corrected. "If they produce them there, the Soviets will have a well-guarded open-water port to send them to. From Vladivostok, they'll go everywhere they're needed, and that will be the end of your deterrence policies."

"So you have the data, then?"

The man pocketed his flask and pulled out a reel of magnetic recorder tape from a hidden pocket within the lining of his overcoat. "Please realize that I never wanted to give this to you in public," he commented, handing it over.

"I appreciate your forbearance in this matter. Your payment should be confirmed any time soon."

As his guest rose to leave, the man cleared his throat.

"Not quite yet," he said, holding a brick-like cellular phone to his ear. "Stay a while. My friend won't let you move five steps unless I flash him the correct signal."

The man froze in mid-step, catching his balance. "Excuse me?"

He held the phone to his ear, an international dial tone ringing. "I'm sorry to have to do this," he looked up at the man, his sharp almond eyes downcast and a slanted, sad expression about his face. He was as truly sympathetic, not wanting to inconvenience his client or further delay him. "I would like to trust you, but there were problems with trusting you people in '61. I'd like to not run into them again."

"You smug little _bastard..._" the man growled, sitting down, hands clenched into fists. "Who the hell do you think you _are!_"

"I think I'm the only person on earth with the encryption key to that file." He covered the mouthpiece of the phone. "Of course, if you'd like to try to have your number-crunchers at the NSA bust through it, the tape will only accept one entry of the code before the contents are physically destroyed by a magnesium-ignited compound."

He brought the mouthpiece back up. "Ja, guten abend. Das ist herr Klein, kunde 49218," he spoke in perfect German. "Meine kontonummer ist 910-421-4421, kennwort ist 8434609, Berlin. Hat es irgendwelche neuen ablagerungen zu meiner rechnung gegeben?"

There was a moment of silence. "Ja, das ist. Ja. Vielen dank." The man pulled the phone away from his ear and pressed a button to disconnect the call. "It appears you're serious," he nodded. He smiled at the man and flashed two fingers, then a mock-salute with his left hand. "Now!" he exclaimed suddenly, eyes quickly focusing off to his left, over the right shoulder of the other man.

He turned in a panic, waiting for a blow that never came. At least, not from the direction he expected.

Richard Sonoma stepped back from the government agent, loosening the knife-edged hand he had struck the man with. It was an effective enough blow, little more than a quick, hard press, to the arteries running behind his neck. The interruption in blood flow caused him to shuffle to the ground in an unconscious heap. He'd still be breathing, but he'd have a monster headache upon waking up.

"Sorry about that," Sonoma shook his head, tucking a wax-sealed envelope into the man's hand. "If you had backup, I didn't want you calling them in after we were finished."

He shook his flask to see if there was any more coffee. Finding none, he checked his watch and walked two blocks down to where his car was kept.

The still-new-smelling Plymouth Horizon growled to life as he turned it down Pennsylvania Avenue, heading towards I-395 and Dulles International Airport. His flight was leaving in two hours, and the airport newsstands would probably get the day's Washington Post by the time he arrived.

Pan Am 24 from IAD to LAX took off on schedule, with only one passenger in the first class cabin for the 6:45 AM flight.

**Outside Konduz, Afghanistan  
That same time (8:46 AM, September 5th)**

The Soviet base had been alive since 6 AM, the traditional bugle having been replaced by the roar of helicopter turboshafts. A wing of four Mi-24 attack helicopters went out on a daily morning patrol, and the enterprising base commander had requested them to buzz the barracks tents in order to rouse his soldiers.

"My head hurts," Private Valery Danilenko moaned, already accustomed to the shockingly loud wake-up and still curled up in a fetal position on his cot. He had won his share of the vodka in the poker game last night, setting a new personal best four straight hands with surprising victories.

"Your own fault, you damn Kazakh," Corporal Sergei Kuyvishev mumbled from beneath his rough-wool blanket. "Let me sleep a little while longer."

"Where's the lieutenant?" Danilenko looked around. "I thought he was crashing here with us?"

"Dunno," Kuyvishev stirred. "He probably went to the _zampolit_ again."

* * *

"Comrade Kalinin, are you sure about this?" 

Kalinin stood at ease, hands clasped behind his back, feet apart at shoulder's width, precisely looking forward. He did not meet the mischievously sparkling blue eyes of the KGB officer across from him, the disciplined ground soldier to the end.

"I am sure, comrade Rozhkov," Kalinin replied strongly.

The KGB officer stood up, brushing his green serge uniform off superfluously. "Central Command will not look kindly upon this mission plan!"

"I am aware of that, comrade Rozhkov."

"That's comrade _colonel_ to you, comrade lieutenant!" Rozhkov shouted, suddenly unable to hold back his laughter. "Andrei Sergeivich, you are crazy, I hope you know that."

Kalinin let a rare grin slip. "I am aware of that too, Misha Il'ych," Kalinin said to his old friend, Mikhail Ilya Rozhkov, the divisional _zampolit_ for the 76th Guards Air Rifle Regiment's _spetsnaz_ platoons.

"Sit down, Andrei Sergeivich," Rozhkov gestured to the metal folding chair opposite his map table. He brushed aside a map of the city of Konduz and its surrounds off of the table and set out two metal mugs, pouring tea. "I still can't believe you were just going to _take_ him back to his base."

"It was an idea, Misha," Kalinin shrugged, accepting the tin mug and sipping some of the tea. "If we could at least have him lead us back to his operational area, it would allow us to at least pinpoint the Helmaji base."

"I only wish it could be that way, Andrei," Rozhkov said, sipping his tea, "but our political masters have handed down their orders. Such is as it is."

Kalinin nodded.

"I wish I could let you, Andrei," Rozhkov set his mug down, leaning forward. "Believe me, I owe you so much from back in the Basic Cadet School and the Academy."

"Misha, you don't owe me anything," Kalinin said as he shook his head. "I was merely inquiring as to the operational feasibility of such a plan."

* * *

The metal door of the medical tent-slash-barracks flew open, and Sergeant Kadashvili's bulky form blocked the harsh daylight outside. 

"Sergeant!" Both soldiers immediately stood and snapped to attention.

"Can it, comrades, we have work to do," Kadashvili growled. "Pack in five minutes for an extended deployment, and meet up with me at the divisional armory."

"Yes, Sergeant!" they shouted as they saluted. Kadashvili returned it, rather tensely.

"This is your last chance to back out," Kadashvili lowered his voice as he rummaged through his field pack, pretending to arrange some items. "The lieutenant doesn't expect you to participate unwillingly."

"We want to put an end to the Helmaj raids just as much as you and Lieutenant Kalinin do, comrade sergeant," Danilenko quietly replied. "We are Soviet soldiers, and we must accomplish the goals set before Soviet soldiers, no?"

"You've got a good head on your shoulders, Danilenko," Kadashvili stood up, clapping a hairy, bearish hand on the private's shoulder, shaking him a little violently. "You'd damn well better pack a Dragunov on this mission. Let's see if that Kazakh hunter's blood can take down some black-assed rebels!"

"_Da,_ comrade sergeant!"

* * *

"All we really know about them is their ferocity; we have no information about their culture, their background, even their language other than its base roots." Rozhkov flipped the next black-and-white photo in the small stack. It showed some lightly-armed men in ragged, sun-bleached clothes storming onto a T-72 tank. "They attack from the northeast and manage to level entire bases. Their ability to capture Soviet equipment hints at the fact that they have an intelligence source that is highly placed and training that is beyond our own. As you know, not even a _spetsnaz_ squad is trained in literally boarding and capturing American tanks." 

Kalinin looked at the photo, trying to get a glimpse of the faces of the men who were wrenching a bolt cutter into place. Rozhkov's next photo showed the tank's crew being physically hauled out of the tank, the secure bolts holding the turret hatch already lying on the tank's hull, snapped in half.

"They've shot down Hinds and Hips like flies. Sometimes it's with those new American Stingers and old Redeyes, sometimes with our own SA-7s. They'll roll over _mudjehedeen_ and anyone else. Believe me, Andrei Sergeivich, it is best that you not even try to go up against them with less than a division's worth of _spetsnaz._"

"Misha, you know as well as I do that the less there is to detect, the less there will be to worry about."

"_Da,_ Andrei, but I cannot afford to lose you."

Rozhkov unfolded a different map, a regional map of northeast Afghanistan. "We've encountered them as far west as the highway from yesterday," he pointed out, gesturing to the area that Kalinin's unit had been reconnoitering the previous day. "They've been known to operate all the way back through the majority of Badakhshan province, but we haven't been able to deploy through the Panhandle."

Rozhkov referred to the area of Afghanistan that passed between the Tadzhik Soviet Socialist Republic and Pakistan, cutting like a sword through the nations and extending all the way to the mountainous southwest of China.

"This is all we know, Andrei Sergeivich." Rozhkov spread his hands, then reached for his tea. "All we need is one Helmaj, and the one you brought us is the only one we have ever captured alive."

"You mean all the KGB needs is one, Misha Il'ych," Kalinin corrected.

Rozhkov nodded slowly. "That is true, comrade, but just as you volunteered to stay in the Army, so did I volunteer to join State Security. We both do vital work for the _rodina._ Neither of us is any less a Communist because of that."

Kalinin nodded. His grandfather's legs had been crushed by the very wheels of Czar Nikolai II's carriage; upon petitioning the Palace for the exorbitant bills he would have to pay, he was bayoneted. No reason, no foul, no indication had come to Andrei Kalinin the elder. His young son, Sergei Andreievich, had fought alongside Lenin in the October Revolution, but soon fled with Leon Trotsky when their dreams of equality had been subverted by the institutional bloodthirst of Stalin. Kalinin, unlike a good majority of Soviet citizens and workers, was ever angered by the elites who so easily maimed, then murdered, his grandfather.

Of course, Kalinin's distrust of elites often extended to that of the Party and the Politburo. Despite the charges laid before the Politburo under the Collective Will of the People, Kalinin had never thought that unappointed leaders could ever truly speak for the downtrodden and oppressed masses.

_Like any organized power, the leaders have corrupted the initial spirit,_ Kalinin leafed through Rozhkov's photos one last time. _So it is with capitalism in the west, communism here... Christianity, Islam... so many are always seeking to subvert their own people._

"May I keep this one, Misha Il'ych?" Kalinin asked; he held up another photo of the unknown man on the strange metal contraption.

"By all means, Andrei Sergeivich." Rozhkov went over to the small samovar that was in the corner of his tent. "Is there anything else I can do for you?"

Kalinin didn't answer. Instead, he swiftly stood up, took a step forward, and clubbed Rozhkov on the back of his head with his own Makarov pistol, so deftly swiped from its holster.

Kalinin was careful to tip over the samovar and arrange Rozhkov's unconscious body to appear as if he had slipped in a spilled puddle of tea. There were three knocks on the exterior metal pole of the tent.

"We're ready to go, comrade lieutenant," Sergeant Kadashivili saluted. Private Danilenko and Corporal Kuyvyshev were behind him and to the right, also saluting. The younger soldiers were somewhat burdened under the large field packs they carried.

Kalinin returned the salute. "Good. Are you armed?"

"Danilenko has been designated our sniper. Kuyvyshev is leaving behind the PKM, but we have grenade launchers for our AKMs. Assorted suppressed weapons and an RPG-7 as well."

"Can you walk, comrade corporal?" Kalinin grinned, patting Kuyvyshev on the back.

"I can walk as far as needed, comrade lieutenant!" the young Russian enthusiastically replied.

"Good. Let's get into position."

**MITHLANT Headquarters  
****Rome, Italy  
****That same time (4:30 PM local)**

"All stations, stand by. MARSUPIAL downlink from Cheltenham is preparing to transmit. Signal uplink in four."

The Intel watch officer was a German, formerly a counterintelligence officer attached to the Bundes Kriminal Amt, the German equivalent to the American FBI. He was always busy, working out of the Bonn governmental offices to constantly root out spies. The Stasi, the East German equivalent of the KGB, had become dastardly skilled at infiltration, and he had rooted out deep-plant after deep-plant, delving from lowly privates in the West German army all the way up to cabinet aides in Parliament.

The recruiter from MITHRIL hadn't lied about the Intel branch of the secret organization. "It will be another crawl up the ladder, but you won't be dealing with people sneaking out the training rotation schedules to the KGB, that's for sure," the man who spoke with a Swiss accent had hinted. The café had a superb Vienna roast that day, and there wasn't yet a shift that the German didn't pour himself some of the same fresh, heady brew.

The emblazoned MITHRIL mug was long since empty. His shift, starting at 10 AM, had necessitated it. It was entirely lucky that MITHLANT hadn't yet been set on alert. The briefing from MITHPAC was enough to scare everyone, but at least they weren't handling this issue.

He checked his watch. Two hours left before he could catch a quick dinner and rotate back to Bonn for some R&R before his next tour of duty.

"All stations, MARSUPIAL downlink has begun. Estimate fourteen minutes to completion. Photointel watch, stand by."

_That had to have been Technical Sergeant Valdez,_ the German thought, contemplating another cup of coffee. _She's been here for only a couple of weeks, but it's like she never left the Spanish Air Force. A good analyst. She has some royal blood in her, right? That is, if the Personnel department has done their homework properly._

It took a few minutes for the MARSUPIAL system designated to Cheltenham Royal Air Force Base in England—this one disguised as a flock of badgers, with an overgrown mushroom as their transmittal point—to send over their data stream. It was an agonizing length of time to wait for some shots from an American KH-11 recon satellite, but it was worth it nonetheless.

_If only the English didn't have a penchant for hunting, we wouldn't have to keep sending in new MARSUPIALs..._

"Colonel Dietrich, please report to Photointel watch station. Colonel Dietrich, to Photointel watch, please," a Spanish-accented voice called out over the PA system.

"Einen minuten," Colonel Wilhelm Dietrich grumbled, pouring himself a fresh mug of coffee on the way down.

"What do you have, Sergeant?" Dietrich went up to the Photointelligence section, located within the cavernous, digital-display-laden MITHLANT command center.

"That hot item we sent out command-wide just got flagged coming out of the Brits' take from the Americans," Technical Sergeant Valdez reported, tapping a photo printer attached to her operator terminal. "The Americans tasked another pass to make sure the Egyptians had pulled behind the Israeli line, and this time, they decided to take a look at the leg."

Dietrich sipped at his coffee. "So they know about it now?"

"Actually, sir..." The photo printer started to hum as it printed the intercepted image onto photo paper. "It's not there anymore."

Dietrich almost choked on his coffee. "What do you _mean,_ it's not there anymore!"

"I meant exactly that, Colonel." Valdez blinked away the officer's anger. He managed to calm down after realizing his subordinate hadn't gone all the way to the Negev/Sinai border zone and picked up the giant metal leg. "It wasn't there on the image."

Dietrich looked down at the output area of the photo printer, a massive box-like structure. Already he saw the familiar crater, but the prominent leg had gone missing.

"_Du lieber gott,_" he swore under his breath. "Who could have taken it?"

"There's more, sir." Valdez rolled her wheeled office chair over to her terminal, punching up a few keys. "The KH-11 took some more photos of the area around the leg, and there seems to be some trouble."

Colonel Dietrich peered over Sergeant Valdez's shoulder, taking in the photograph that the American recon satellite had taken.

The KH-11 satellite had a camera resolution that was legendary in its secrecy and was thus very carefully guarded. Not even the KGB knew how accurate and sharp-eyed the 'Keyhole' truly was; however, it was nothing that a MARSUPIAL couldn't intercept and send along. MITHRIL was used to reading the private diaries of people who were foolish enough to write them without the cover of an umbrella; it was nothing troublesome to capture from two hundred miles in orbit.

Instead of a close-up on the crater, the satellite had captured a wide-angle shot that he estimated at maybe a square kilometer. The desert was still laden with craters from old tanks and other vehicles from the '73 Yom Kippur war, but when he compared the new photo to an archive shot, there were numerous more burned-out hulks than before.

Dietrich counted the smoking hulls of no less than twelve Israeli Magach-6 tanks, with almost double that number of destroyed Soviet-made T-72s. A zoomed-in shot confirmed a painted-on Egyptian flag on a T-72.

"Print these up and encrypt them over to MITHPAC and MITHCENT," Dietrich set aside his coffee mug, grabbing a comm headset from a nearby empty station.

"Operator," a voice on the other end instantly picked up.

"This is Colonel Dietrich at MITHLANT Intel. Conference me in with the MITHCENT and MITHPAC Intel watches."

**Konduz base  
That same time**

The explosions of the training artillery packs went off with expert delay timing, one of Kadashvili's many skills in working with demolitions. Each charge simulated the explosion of an 80mm mortar, a weapon favored and used by both the Soviets and the _mudjehedeen._

"Incoming from the east!" Kalinin shouted into a barracks of soldiers, stunned by the sudden explosions. "_Move!_"

The soldiers grabbed their AKs and raced to the eastern edge of Konduz Base, opening fire at the shimmering silhouettes of mirages echoing up from the surface. An alarm klaxon started to ring out as more explosions rocked the base from the south.

"4th Platoon, cover our right flank," the divisional tactical radio called out. "123rd Regiment, deploy a cover formation to the north in case they try to come around. I want the 5th and 6th Motor-Rifle to cover our rear and prepare to close in any attackers from that direction."

"This is 144th _spetsnaz_," Kuyvyshev radioed in. "Requesting permission to go airborne and cut them off from the rear!"

"Petrov here," the divisional commander radioed back. "Approved! Get those _mudje_ bastards!"

"That should do it," Kalinin calmly remarked as the men raced towards the air-operations tarmac. "How long do we have before the next round hits?"

"Forty seconds. These will be right in front of the choppers," Kadashvili recalled from his memorized simulator deployments. "That'll scare them off the ground for sure."

"Good enough." Kalinin stepped up the pace, and the men dashed across to the helicopter operations area.

Master Sergeant Valery Malenko was already barking instructions to the fuelers, lest they spill the volatile helicopter fuel over the wing of his Mi-24. It would not do to have a stray fragment ignite a fire on the wings of his chopper; the UV-57 rockets and AT-4 anti-tank missiles were not very fireproof.

"Comrade sergeant!" his gunner, a young private first class, yelled to catch his attention as the _spetsnaz_ soldiers came rushing towards the chopper.

"Take us up, comrade!" Kalinin ordered as he practically pulled Danilenko through the troop door of the bulky attack helicopter. "We're looping around and ambushing the attacking force from behind!"

"Are you crazy?" the pilot yelled, looking up at Kalinin from the outside of his bubble canopy. "I'm not going to sit around like a gorilla with our ass hanging out when they can blow us out of the sky with an RPG!"

"That's an order, comrade sergeant!" Kalinin shot back. "Either you take us up or we send _you_ out there with a rifle!"

Kadashvili was true to his word. A mortar simulator exploded forty yards away. Another followed a moment later, a mere twenty yards away.

"Damn _spetsnazniks_," the pilot yelled, rapidly ducking. "Kick up the fuel flow!"

Sergeant Malenko climbed the steps into the helo's cockpit as his gunner started flicking the auxiliary power switches. The gunner and pilot had the turboshaft engines roaring in another few seconds, and the massive five-bladed rotor began rotating slowly, picking up speed at a steady, rapid rate.

"You're full up!" The fuel crew chief yanked the reinforced high-flow hose away from the Hind, slapping the armored side of the chopper affectionately. "Get out there and bag us some raiders!"

"If they're _mudje,_ we'll bring you back a turban!" the gunner shot back with a grin. "If they're Helmaj, then may we meet again in Hell!"

"Already there, comrade!" the fuel chief saluted as his crew drove the fuel truck away as fast as it could go. "Good hunting!"

The Mil turboshaft engine quickly spun the rotor to full speed as the twin intake turbines started to spin. Building up power, the Hind settled briefly at the tail as the pilot pulled back on the collective stick. Kalinin had left the sliding crew door open, not even bothering to belt himself into a troop seat, and he had a full-side view as Kadashvili's explosives erupted throughout the base. He saw one soldier go flying as he ran over a charge just as it went off. Fortunately, he only flew about ten feet into the air, landing hard on his right arm.

_Sorry about that,_ Kalinin winced. A broken arm would ruin anyone's day, but he'd live to fight again.

The Hind kicked up massive clouds of sand as it rotated off the makeshift tarmac and took to the air. Kalinin held on to a metal handrail in the chopper as the pilot reefed it hard to the east, picking up altitude.

"This is Strelya-one, requesting a vector to targets, over," Malenko radioed out. He nodded a few times as a response came through the earphones of his helmet. "Copy, Konduz. Will patrol grid coordinates 45/37 and provide support to advancing perimeter security. We'll take out those mortars as soon as we see them. Strelya-one out."

"All weapons armed and operational," the gunner called over his shoulder. "Ready for targets."

"Head east, comrade," Kalinin yelled to the pilot over the din of the rotor as he moved up to the cockpit. "We need a dropoff at 43/30."

"That's right behind the main axis of the attack if they're in from the east!" Malenko yelled back. "Are you insane?"

"Head east," Kalinin repeated, growing tired already, holding Rozhkov's stolen Makarov pistol up to the pilot's head. "Head east and drop down as far as you can go. Fly between mountains if you must. Remove your radio microphone as well, comrade. I do not want to have to put my cross-training in helicopter piloting into practice."

"What the _fuck_ are you doing?" Malenko hissed, catching a glimpse of the pressed gunmetal at his forehead.

Kalinin reached over to the microphone jutting out from the right side of the pilot's helmet. With one swift movement, he severed the connector cord that patched the microphone into the radio system with a previously unseen knife.

"Now, comrade, you will head east," Kalinin said as flatly as he could, now holding the gun to the pilot's head and the knife only a few precarious centimeters from the pilot's throat. The prisoner had handed the ceremonial Helmaj dagger to him in a strange sense of confidence as he was unloaded at Konduz the previous night, and Kalinin had no idea why. Still, he couldn't hesitate to make use of it if he had to.

"Okay, okay," Malenko breathed deeply. "I have a wife and daughter. I'll do what you say."

"I was hoping you'd just obey a superior officer, comrade sergeant," Kalinin pulled back the knife and gun. "Just remember that the good men at the Mil design bureau made these helicopters so even an idiot soldier such as myself could pilot one."

Kalinin felt the helicopter tilt to the right as the pilot dropped altitude rather harshly and turned east, no doubt treating his captors with a bit of roughness to spite them.

"We are good to go, comrades," Kalinin went back to his men in the troop seats, taking another good look at the Helmaj dagger. "If we follow this, we may just be heading in the right direction."

Kalinin took out the area map that he had swiped from Rozhkov's makeshift office. A terrain map of Badakhshan province, it displayed ridgelines, hills, mountains, and valleys in near-precision detail, complete with coordinate mapping. It was scribbled with markings of suspected Helmaj bases and _mudjehedeen_ operating areas, but so many of those scribbles had yielded nothing.

Except for when Kalinin held the blade of the Helmaj dagger up to grid coordinates 12/74, a point approximately four hundred kilometers to the east.

One side of the blade, polished to a high-mirror sheen, had the slightest of imprints on it. When viewed without any light reflecting off the dagger, the angle yielded the very faintest of curves and undulations. They formed a perfect match with the terrain indicators on grid coordinates 12/74, a mountainous expanse at the very base of what was known to the men as the "Helmaj Panhandle."

**To be continued...**

**A/N and glossary:**

**TADS/PNVS:** Acronym for Targeting Acquisition Designation Sight/Pilot Night Vision Sensor. This is an integrated night-vision and targeting system designed for the AH-64 Apache attack helicopter. Not officially fielded until the mid-1980s, this represented the most rugged and advanced targeting system on a modern attack helicopter for its time. The system was slaved to a small eyepiece on the gunner's helmet, allowing him to simply look in a certain direction and have the image centered on a display. The gunner can then simply designate a target to lock on and the system does the rest.

The modifications performed on it by the MITHRIL engineer allowed the TADS/PNVS to acquire and track far more rapidly-moving targets than an average ground vehicle, making it able to track small aircraft, or more appropriately, the Leapfrog.

**Mi-24 "Hind": **Arguably one of the most versatile, powerful, fast, and surprisingly maneuverable helicopters known to the world, the Hind was designed in the 1960s as a new-generation helicopter gunship with a secondary troop-carrying capacity. By the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the Hind had evolved into the deadly Mi-24 Hind D. The D model was equipped with six wing pylons and a high-speed .50-caliber Gatling gun under the nose. The Hind normally carried four UV-57-32 rocket pods and two sets of two AT-4 Sagger anti-tank missiles, which made for an incredibly deadly and heavily-armed complement of weapons. If that wasn't bad enough, the Hind's cargo bay has the ability to carry eight fully-loaded combat infantrymen or their equivalent weight in regular cargo. Armored like a tank, a Hind can withstand up to .50 caliber gunfire easily, and some have even managed to have dented armor from 23mm anti-aircraft gunfire.

The Hind is a rugged, easy-to-maintain helicopter and saw strong service in Afghanistan. The introduction of Hinds was a primary factor for the United States to send Stinger anti-aircraft missiles to the Afghan _mudjehedeen_; indeed, the Stingers downed many a Hind and rapidly equalized the battlefield.

A _mudjehedeen_ is reputedly quoted to have said "We are not afraid of the Soviets, but we are afraid of their helicopters." The Hind D is indeed worthy of that fear.


	8. Interlude: The Treading Behemoth

**A/N**: For these interludes, I'm making the titles as homages to certain things. If you want to be adventurous and Google them, you'll uncover my primary creative influences. Of course, if you want to take them at face value, I think they make good chapter titles.

Props to Lakewood and Anysia for beta-ing; however, I kinda rushed this into production before it got a final review. Any mistakes remaining in this chapter are mine and mine alone.

As always, reviews, critiques, and questions are welcomed!

This might be the last update I make to this story before Katsucon. If anyone's going to be there, look for me! I'll be cosplaying my famous Jewish Wolfwood (Check my profile page for a picture) and Taishi from Comic Party.

This chapter was updated on February 12th after an anonymous reviewer pointed out a technical error in my author's notes. The error is solely mine and it has since been corrected. I used the T-72 tank instead of the T-62. Thank you, anonymous specialist! Your pointer helped a lot. If you'd like to do further technical or creative beta work, please get in contact with me! I apologize to my readers for the mistake.

On with the show!

* * *

_**7: Interlude (The Treading Behemoth)**_

_

* * *

_

**September 5th, 1981  
MITHPAC Headquarters  
Sydney, Australia  
9:55 PM local time**

Gef took her time in the shower, lingering under a sharp, cold stream of water. After an hour's worth of aikido practice, throwing and being thrown on the mats, she knew that she needed hot water in order to relax her worked-over muscles.

The cold helped her a little more thoroughly, though. It didn't take much soaping to uncover the numerous scars on her body, and for some reason, her body always seemed to heat up when she touched them.

_It makes me feel like the sun is beating down on me,_ she thought, pausing as she ran over a faded patch of scar tissue on her cheek. _Yeah, like I'm back in the desert..._

**October 10th, 1973  
Approximately four miles east of the Suez Canal  
****Near Rumani, Egypt/Israel (Disputed territory)  
****4:42 PM**

The crashing explosion behind the dug-in foxhole was like the beckoning bellow of the damned for the isolated pocket of Israeli Defense Force soldiers.

All across the battle line, the impacts of artillery could be felt near and far. The more distant explosions resonated with a thunderous _whoomp_, and when combined with the louder din of closer-landing shells, the sound became all too similar to an extended drum solo.

"We've lost Netan!" the medic cried out, tearing a bandage off with his teeth in order to patch the shrapnel wound in his own arm. "A fragment cut the carotid artery. It's no use."

Private Gefen ben Lebedov, fresh out of basic training, clung desperately to her M-16's plastic pistol grip. She had since bit her lip to near-bleeding in nervousness; her platoon of twenty-four soldiers had earlier been cut in half by a 155mm round landing too close to their other M113 armored personnel carrier, and by the time their motorized rifle regiment had advanced to the front line, they were at one-fourth their strength from even more not-quite-near-misses.

"Any luck with the radio, Avi?" Corporal Berl Kafni, the current ranking soldier, pulled his radioman over. He was the least-damaged member of the platoon; there were only some superficial near-miss wounds on his cheeks. A nasty gash on his forehead from exiting their now-wrecked APC had already been patched up.

"I can't make it through the Egyptian jamming, Berl," Private Abdiel Shahar shook his head, yelling over the repeated _kathoom _of tank cannons. "I don't even know if they confirmed our calls for fire support."

The loud, roaring diesel engine of a tank passed them close by, almost near enough to reach out and touch. The squeaking, un-oiled sounds of road wheels stopped, and after a moment, the explosion of a tank gun shook the three soldiers.

"Gef, is there anything to the west?" Kafni yelled over the diesel engine of the nearby tank.

"I... I see some tanks moving north..." she peered up out of the foxhole, barely letting the pupils of her eyes over the edge. "Domes. Looks like some of the new T-62s."

"Shit!" Kafni swore. "That was a T-55 not forty yards from us!"

Another volley of artillery started to shake the ground near them.

"Not far off," Kafni called out as the tank started to move away and the clouds of artillery explosions rose near the horizon. They were helpless to stop the Soviet-made tank despite its obsolete gun and poor side armor. Three rifles couldn't do anything in this situation; even now, their most powerful weapon—a radio—lay useless, having been rendered into static by powerful Soviet-made jammers deployed by the Egyptians.

_Oh God I don't want to die I don't want to die I don't want to die I don't want to die_

Her father's face was still a painful memory; even the news of his death a few days before hadn't been enough to excuse her from duty. He had been one of the top close-support pilots in the Israeli Air Force; the fact that he had died while dodging ground fire in his A-4 Skyhawk, desperately piloting his wrecked plane into the center of a Syrian command APC, did nothing to ease Gef's suffering.

Her mother already rested in a cemetery near the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, and the very thought of a gravestone with her name on it struck a visceral, rending fear in the pit of her stomach.

A tearing sound _rrrrsshh_ noise crackled like thunder suddenly raced past the soldiers. Just ten feet behind the foxhole, a fountain of sand kicked up with a flat, crashing _thunk_.

"HEAT rounds! Take cover!" Kafni yelled out, pulling Gef down to the bottom of the foxhole.

The sound of the tank cannon that had fired the round reached them a second or two later; it was an angry crash that marked the less-efficient cannon of an Egyptian PT-76. It wasn't much for the battlefield, but it was more than enough to kill the soldiers where they were hiding.

"It's no use," Gef cried out, curled in a fetal position at the bottom of the foxhole. Another HEAT anti-tank round crashed near them. "They'll load a white phosphorous shell and they'll burn us to death. We're going to die here, aren't we?"

"Damned if we do!" Kafni pulled her up by the lapels of her desert camouflage. "We're going to kill that damn tank and get out of here, just you wait!"

"I just want to die," she said, her stormy eyes streaking with tears. "Just let me go so I can take the bullet. I'm not going to leave the Sinai alive, so let me just die and be with my family!"

**September 5th, 1981  
Pan Am flight 24, Somewhere over Minnesota  
****10:12 AM**

_A first-class ticket on such an early flight isn't really much of a sought-after commodity._

Richard Sonoma sipped at a cup of coffee—this time regular, with cream and sugar—as he leafed through a sheaf of papers that he had packed into his briefcase just before his early-morning "meeting." He was fortunate that all the other seats were empty; if he was traveling in back, such a situation would have allowed him to kick his feet up on the empty seats, maybe even nap a little. Fortunately, the wide leather seats of first-class made space concerns nonexistent.

_So the setting on the bilateral conversion system has finally surpassed the third-generation spec,_ he thought, examining an engineering blueprint._ I didn't think it would be at such a point already. It's not like it matters, though._

He covered the blueprint with a faked spreadsheet showing expenditures in chemical disposal for a nonexistent pharmaceutical firm as he sensed movement a few feet away.

"Can I get you some more coffee, Mr. Sonoma?" a smiling flight attendant asked, thermal carafe at the ready.

"Only if you don't mind me getting used to this kind of service," he grinned, handing over the plastic coffee cup. "I'm not used to anyone remembering my name."

"Well, we do try to treat our first-class passengers nicely," the stew grinned, taking the cup. "Light and sweet, right?"

"Right as rain." He smiled, nodding as she handed back the cup. Sonoma raised it in thanks, taking a sip of the coffee.

_I shouldn't drink coffee when I fly,_ he thought. _It makes me jittery. I hate jitters. It's like I'm a field operative again, thrown into a whole new snowy world of death and destruction..._

**November 18th, 1965  
Arzamas-16 Laboratory Facility  
2:24 AM**

The Makarov kicked out the empty 9mm shell casings as quickly as Dr. Gregor Rachenkov could pull the trigger. Gunshot after gunshot rang out in the once-sealed chamber as the expected alarm klaxons never came.

The brutish security guard in front of the Dollhouse fell, ten bullets being almost overkill for the tough, brawny soldier. Awkwardly, Rachenkov popped the magazine release on the rear of the pistol and reloaded a fresh clip. He resumed his two-handed grip on the pistol, looking in every direction, expecting a swarm of KGB troops to come breaching through the triple airlock, sensitive components in the lab be damned.

"Come out, you Soviet bastards!" he screamed in Czech, smiling dementedly with the knowledge that they wouldn't be able to understand a word of it, basking in the sharp pains coming from his ragged throat. "I'll tear you to pieces, each and every one of you!"

Nothing responded to his frenzied calls. He suppressed the desire to violently cough, his throat already burning from even speaking for too long. The shouting had worn him out, so he didn't even comment when he shot out the security panels for the heavy metal doors.

In a rare moment of human compassion, the Soviet Union had set up an emergency system to heave the doors open and grant a rescue team access to the Shepatavshiy inside. _The entire lab could burn down or be blown away by a nuclear warhead,_ Rachenkov thought as he brought his bony fist down on the large red emergency button. _Everyone's life is worthless save for the Shepatavshiy._ This time, the alarm was triggered, and a response team couldn't be far off.

The electronic honking of the klaxon, accompanied by rotating red lights, threw on every single emergency system in the lab as a failsafe. Halon gas flooded the workrooms, and the triple airlock system was disengaged, unlocking and throwing open every solid access door. The pneumatic system that regulated the Dollhouse door literally threw the meter-thick reinforced protective doors open; they were fast enough to crush anyone unfortunate enough to be behind them.

Rachenkov ran through the now-brightly lit corridors into where Natalya was kept. The corridors were an ugly shade of teal, normally kept in complete darkness with their spotted red hall lighting, but the battery-powered emergency lights flooded the corridors as the emergency Halon systems were tripped. It was hard enough to see and breathe without it, but the gas kicked up a heavy fog, obscuring Rachenkov's path.

_He will be waiting,_ Rachenkov reminded himself as he almost tripped over a large wrench. _He will take her to safety in the West, or anywhere but here. She's still just a young girl, and even a Soviet citizen would be kind to a lost girl, would they not?_

Natalya was cowering in a corner, still attached to the IV systems that kept her in a drugged, stuporous state. She was actively cowering from the alarms and the sudden appearance of bright lights and fog all around, but when her almond eyes locked onto Rachenkov's familiar dark blue ones, she shook a little bit less.

"Come!" Rachenkov called, extending his left hand and lowering his pistol. "I'm going to get you out of this place!"

The KGB fast-response team had already deployed from their on-site bunker, rushing towards the lab facility in an eight-wheeled BTR-60 personnel carrier. The Novgorod night had seen another heavy snowstorm close in, and the large APC literally crashed through the lab perimeter fence as spiraling clouds of snow were kicked up by the impact.

"We have an unknown alarm set off in the central lab facility!" Solov, the supervisor and local _apparatchik_, began to brief the seven KGB soldiers. "The security of the _Shepatavshiy_ is top priority. Get her out, and whatever you do, make damn well sure that she's still hooked up to those machines!"

It didn't take long until the first anti-vehicle land mine detected the rumblings of the BTR. Set up not even an hour ago, simply dropped into the snow, the mines were easily triggered by a large enough magnetic field. The armor of the BTR-60 easily created a field of the requisite size, and the undercarriage was barely armored against anything larger than a stone.

The pyre rising in the distance got him moving. This time, he had come more heavily armed. His camouflage had gone from the usual arctic-warfare issue to a new patterned green-on-white uniform. Even the new M-16 rifle he carried was pressed white plastic, completely invisible against the drifting snow.

_I can do this,_ he thought as he raced from drift to drift, stopping momentarily to check for pursuers or patrolling guards. _It'll never happen again if I can stop it from happening. We'll end it here and stop the Soviets. Operational restrictions be damned. Hell, MITHRIL be damned! _

The door to the research facility was an easy kick inwards. His white gas mask was already on to filter out the near-poisonous Halon suppression gases.

"You're late," he mumbled through his gas mask as Rachenkov emerged from the Dollhouse corridor. The thin Czech professor was near the entrance, carrying the barely-conscious Shepatavshiy over his shoulders. A bandage covered her upper arm where the IV needle had once been set.

They ventured out, the professor barely protected with his parka, and the agent in his cold-weather exposure gear. The alert klaxons had extended throughout the entire base, and the smoking wreck of the BTR was sure to draw undue attention.

**September 5th, 1981  
MITHPAC Headquarters  
Sydney, Australia  
9:57 PM local time**

_It doesn't even faze me anymore,_ Gef rinsed off the lather of the soap from her body. Still set to ice-cold, the shower was kicking her heart into high gear, pumping warm blood to her extremities.

_No, it doesn't do that much,_ she shrugged to herself, debating whether or not to shampoo her hair. She ended up electing to wash it, just to get the sweat out.

Gef whipped her wet hair around, reaching for the nearly-empty communal shampoo bottle. _I can still feel the helmet whenever I touch my head, though,_ she thought as she massaged the shampoo into her hair.

_MITHRIL doesn't spare any expense for the basic comforts. I think that they understand what we've gone through. They're good at helping us realize that our past shouldn't matter anymore._

**October 10th, 1973 **  
**The Sinai  
****4:45 PM**

Corporal Kafni had already hauled Gef and Shahar out of the foxhole as the next HEAT round crashed through their position; the 40mm copper dart lancing through the hole cleanly. It had been intended to punch through tank armor, not take out infantrymen, so it didn't have any explosives, but it would certainly be more than enough to slice cleanly through a human being.

"Move it! Get out of the way!" Kafni shouted as the other soldiers made their way, running at a crouch, towards another foxhole towards the east. "Gef, what are you DOING!"

Private Gefen Lebedov had stopped, standing straight up, as another artillery barrage nearby shook the ground on which she stood. The _whiz_ of 7.62mm bullets whipped past her, throwing her sweaty ponytail about her neck with their windy shock waves. She could see the stout amphibious tank, just about a kilometer away, its cupola machine gun sparkling as it fired burst after burst at her.

"GEF!" Kafni ran back after her, grabbing her upper arm. He had been long since wounded in his left hand, and the rough grab threw open the barely-clotted gunshot wound back open.

As Kafni hauled Gef away at a dead run, she felt herself moving her legs involuntarily and her mouth stuck, speaking at a dead mute. The splash of Kafni's own blood on her cheeks only threw her deeper into a daze.

"Metallurgical construct bearings from the Kharkov'sk factory were reputed to contain axles constructed with lower-grade alloy elements, including pyrite compounds mistaken for a formula that was shipped from Arkhangel'sk in February of 1968..." she mumbled, running all along until Kafni literally threw her downwards.

"Snap out of it, Gef!" The medic, whose name patch had since been shredded away from the APC explosion, slapped her briskly across the cheek. She recoiled, unaware of the smeared blood on her face, and suddenly again realized where she was.

"That PT-76... it's still out there, isn't it?" she asked over the crash of another HEAT round.

"Avi, try again!" Kafni commanded, ducking as far down into the foxhole as he could. He was surprised to find something solid, an unused American LAWS rocket launcher. "Get ready to get out of here!"

"No!" Gef suddenly yelled out, grabbing Kafni's wrist as he reached for the LAWS. "You can't get around to the vulnerable point!"

"Gef, stay the hell down! I'm giving the orders here! We're going to cut and run, and this is the heaviest weapon we have left!"

"Let me use it!"

"No way! You're in no condition to fight!"

"I can stop it! The third main road wheel of the series of PT-76s shipped to Egypt is bad! The entire manufacturing batch is loaded with bad axles on the third road wheel!"

"What!" Kafni looked dumbfounded.

The crashing of a HEAT round through the sand took them all by surprise, but this one was close. Too close. The hardened penetrator round sliced through the foxhole and right through the left leg, bone and all, of Avi Shahar and their radio.

The radioman screamed in pain, his leg suddenly severed. Gef didn't waste a second; she was up and had the LAWS in her hand, dashing across the desert with tears still streaking down her face.

"Leave me alone!" she screamed at the tank, racing as fast as her uninjured body could carry her. "Kill me or leave me alone! Kill them, kill us all, just end this!"

She ran fifty meters. One hundred meters. Hardened by every moment of training, she kept running, dashing with adrenaline that a marathon runner could only dream of having.

"Axial components are most vulnerable at their central point of rotation!" she screamed out, sliding to one knee and flipping up the sights of the rocket launcher. The PT-76 fired on her again, the machine gun still incredibly inaccurate. A stray bullet _spang_ed off her helmet. "The centralized drive of a palladium reactor will generate up to seven hundred kilowatts of electricity per minute, transmitting to palladium-based batteries for storage over a period of twenty days!"

_Extend the weapon._

"HARDENED PNEUMATIC SYSTEMS WILL GENERATE A BALANCE THROUGH A GYROSCOPIC STABILIZATION SYSTEM WITH SIXTY-FOUR BIT LOGIC!" she screamed, trance-like, rolling to the side to avoid a stream of bullets from the light tank. "THROUGH THIS APPLICATION, HEAVILY-ARMED SYSTEMS CAN FIRE AT HIGH RATES WITH ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY PERCENT STABILITY!"

Unsafe the weapon and take aim. Training. Training. This is what I remember. This is something I've known forever. What am I doing?

"LET ME DIE!"

_Sight the weapon and depress the trigger._

"LET ME DIIIIIIIIEEE!"

The LAWS rocket kicked out of its disposable tube launcher and crashed into the center road wheel of the PT-76. True to its form, the rocket's shaped-charge warhead directed the explosion forward and into an inverted cone, directing its force right through its point of impact. The road wheel instantly blew off, throwing the tank's tread straight off as it moved forward. It began spinning towards the right before the driver realized what had happened and stopped moving. The gunner swore, rotating his turret around, but as he came to the point where the soldier was once standing, sighting a rocket at them, there was nothing.

Upon hearing a rapid, ratcheting noise, he looked up at the top hatch of the tank just as it flew open. Breathing rapidly and bearing the look of a snarling wolf, Private Gefen ben Lebedov tossed the grenade she had just primed down inside the tank with an animal scream.

She slammed the hatch closed just as the grenade's explosion blew her, as well as the turret, clear of the tank. A series of secondary explosions followed as the tank's ammunition and fuel stores kicked up, and as she fell unconscious, it became silent save for the distant fall of artillery.

**September 5th, 1981  
Pan Am flight 24, Somewhere over southwestern Utah  
****11:30 AM**

The no-smoking lights in the cabin _ding_ed on as the captain began his litany about beginning their descent into Los Angeles International.Richard packed his papers back into his briefcase, having lingered a little too long on the new Rockwell detachable weapons mount systems.

_Amazing,_ he thought. _I can't believe they were able turn this out only on what I gave them. I hate the fact that it's always one side or the other with the amazing new technology. It pains me to a point where nobody could really see it. They'd have to know firsthand the danger that's inherent here._

**November 18th, 1965  
Arzamas-16 Laboratory Facility  
2:30 AM**

The rapid fire of the AK-47 rang out just as the bullets impacted on the outside wall of the lab. Rachenkov felt himself thrown to the ground; Natalya landed on the snow next to him with a sharp whimper. He looked up into the falling snow just as the soldier in white dropped to one knee, firing two three-round bursts from his white-camouflaged assault rifle. It must have been a suppressed weapon, because Rachenkov only heard a series of quick _thut-thut-thut_ noises. He ceased fire, waited for a moment, then hauled the scientist back to his feet.

"You'll have to carry her," he said in a low, controlled voice. "Follow what I say to the letter and you'll get out alive and unhurt. So will she."

Rachenkov nodded, wrapping the parka he wore tightly around him. In a moment, though, he shook his head, shrugging the parka off. He wrapped it around Natalya's shoulders after he helped the young girl to her feet.

"You'll freeze," the soldier immediately observed.

"I will be fine," Rachenkov replied between coughs. "It doesn't matter if I make it out alive. I've done enough for a lifetime. She is just a girl."

Rachenkov couldn't see the expression in Natalya's deep, almond eyes as he picked her up and threw her arm over his shoulder to speed her along. She was a real trooper, keeping up as best as she could, and it was all that the soldier could do but shrug and take up the lead.

"We're not far from a rail yard that supplies the labs," the soldier announced, pointing to the east. "I'll have to hijack one of the switcher locomotives to get us to the nearby Air Defense Force base. I've got transport waiting there."

"We'll follow you, Mr..."

The soldier paused. "I can't reveal my real name," he said coldly. "My callsign is NAPA VALLEY."

**September 5th, 1981  
MITHPAC Headquarters  
Sydney, Australia  
9:58 PM local time**

_It doesn't hit me like this anymore. It doesn't. It doesn't. It's been eight years since the war ended. _

She closed her eyes and tilted her head up, catching the cold spray of the shower full-on in her face. She clenched her jaw tight, as if steeling herself against the water. Her hair was long since shampooed and rinsed, her body long since scrubbed clean. Save for the scars and the water, nothing stood between Gefen ben Lebedov and the shower head. She kept soaking, shaking under the water's spray. It would only look to the observer like a cold shower was causing her to shake.

_No, it doesn't hit me anymore. The violence, the destruction, the pain and suffering of families, of people... gunfire, explosions, always the same... and it just doesn't hit me anymore..._

**October 10th, 1973**  
**The Sinai**  
**4:50 PM**

By the time she came to—maybe about twenty minutes by her badly banged-up watch—the PT-76 had ceased to burn and simply settled on smoking. The stench of scorched, flaming metal was still present in the air, burning her nostrils with an acrid punch. It was now just one of many peals of smoke, most on the horizon, but far too many within a few miles. The wrecked PT-76 must have been a scout for a rear flank, given its isolation from the rest of the smoking and burning wrecks.

Gef got back to her feet, propping herself up on her rifle for a moment. She trudged the half-kilometer back to the foxhole where the rest of her platoon was, but all that was left was Avi Shahar's body, wounded far more gravely than his severed leg had revealed. She saw fragments all over his chest, the torn parts of his dark tan desert camo soaked with blood. His helmet was off, and she could easily tell the cause of death. A 9mm bullet wound direct to his forehead.

_That medic must have been unable to help him,_ she looked down on the dead, amputated young man. _Avi was my age. I never knew him before Basic. Now he's dead in a hole in the Sinai. At least his death was merciful one._

Gef tried to cry. She could feel the tears welling up, moistening around her eyes, and she bit her lip to try and inflict one last pain to force her to break down into a sorrowful, fetal wreck of a human. As her lip started to bleed, the last vestiges of remorse she tried to call forth didn't even answer.

Coldly, she checked Shahar's body for extra ammunition, supplies, and food. She tore off some spare bandages that he carried to patch up a scrape she found on her left wrist, and then realized that she had badly sprained it in the explosion of the tank.

The ripping wake of another tank shell flew past her, and her trained reflexes threw her down to the ground. She saw the shell fly past her head and impact on the desert surface, exploding in a shower of fragments.

_So they switched it to anti-personnel rounds,_ she thought, starting to tear up again. _I shouldn't have even tried to fight it. Death is everywhere here._

She stood back up, discarding the empty LAWS tube from her shoulder. A quick hop brought her down into the foxhole; Sachar's bled-out body tumbed aside as she landed on his amputated leg. She heard barely-intelligible static over the radio, panicked voices calling desperately for fire support, air support, medical support, a final intervention from a seemingly deaf or uncaring God, anything.

The crash of another shell resounded near her, this one with the interspersed peppering of another machine gun.

_I'll wait here to die,_ she thought through her tears as she curled up, knees tucked under her chin, finally feeling hot, salty tears run down her cheeks and into the corners of her mouth. _I just don't care anymore. Dead, living... as long as people who hate each other live next to each other, there'll never be any peace in this world. _

The very existence of a saving grace, a final stroke of mercy, any miracle like that was firmly out of Gef's mind as she stood back up in the foxhole. _No God could allow this,_ she looked down at the radio as a hysterical young private started saying every prayer he could think of in Hebrew, English, and Latin over the radio. _What peace is there when people make their own fates by killing each other?_

She pulled herself up and out. Sure enough, a T-62 was about eight hundred meters away. With one last scream, she cast everything aside: her rifle, her helmet, her survival vest, everything.

"Kill me," she said in a normal speaking voice, throwing her arms aside and her head back, her face wide open and her teeth clenched. She tore off her camo uniform's jacket, exposing a sweat-soaked tan T-shirt. Another shell crashed and exploded behind her, close enough to spray her back with some fragments. It felt like a thousand tiny holes being punched through her camo, and she knew that blood was already mixing in with the sweat on her back. The unearthly _whizz_ of 7.62mm rounds flew past her; she could even see a few in flight, flying like crossbow bolts, straight and true around her.

"Kill me!" she implored again, clenching her fists and taking the smoke-stained sky in for one last time. "I'm ready to die! I want my life to end! Take it! It's yours! Do with it what you will! I don't want to be in this world anymore! KILL MEEEEE!"

**September 5th, 1981  
Pan Am flight 24, approaching LAX runway 25-Right  
****12:15 PM**

The suburban sprawl of Los Angeles was rushing past the passenger windows of the big 747 as it descended towards the big international airport. He didn't even pretend to be interested in the sights. This wasn't his first time coming into the airport, and he was never big on LA anyway.

_I wonder what she'll make tonight,_ he thought, a soft smile crossing his face. It wasn't a rare sight, but he only hoped that he would have something to show for it. There were no hints of wrinkles or crow's feet even coming close to forming on his face. It wasn't for lack of trying, though. Richard Sonoma wasn't one who walked without an arsenal of jokes and wit to match his normal arsenals.

_That pumpkin spice ravioli would be perfect. It's just coming into season, too._

The only trees that he could see were artificially-planted palm trees along some city streets as they swooped by. He wouldn't be on the East Coast this fall, unfortunately; the change in leaves was something that would be as foreign to him this autumn as the aging he constantly yearned for.

_It makes me wish that it was cold back home sometimes. Like the night we first met each other._

**November 18th, 1965  
Arzamas-16 Laboratory Facility  
2:30 AM**

The gunfire came from another BTR that was rapidly approaching from the security base of the lab facility. No, it was two of them, one from the north and one from the east. NAPA VALLEY tossed his arctic-warfare M-16 over his back and unfolded two LAWS rocket launchers from his back. One rocket, then another, blew the BTRs to pieces, a remarkable feat for the relatively long ranges. He didn't have time to gloat, though.

The professor had done the smart thing: thrown himself and Natalya prone to the ground as soon as he heard the unearthly _tukkatukkatukka_ of the 12.7mm machine guns on the BTRs' turrets. He was able to get back up to his own feet, as was Natalya.

"We're cut off," NAPA VALLEY grumbled as he withdrew a pair of binoculars. "The minefield I planted only covered the ready-response facility from the south. If they barricade the rail yard, we're done for."

"There are other vehicles back in the research hangar!" Rachenkov shot out, slapping his fist into his palm. "We can probably make it if we hurry!"

"You don't mean the prototype..."

"At least it's armed!" the Czech scientist shot back. "You can't fight off a regiment of KGB troops on foot!"

_Well..._ NAPA thought. _It wouldn't be the first time..._

"If you held your end of the bargain and set the charges, that hangar will go up in fifteen minutes!" Rachenkov pleaded. "It will either be destroyed in the explosion or it can be piloted back to the West! We can make it!"

"Doctor, are you telling me that thing is combat-ready?"

The scientist looked down at the snow. "They fitted the rapid-fire cannon last week, shortly after our last meet," he admitted. "The machine guns are already active, and as far as I know, the anti-missile systems have been operative since Natalya finished the pre-production. It can move, and it can fight."

NAPA VALLEY considered his options. They'd never be able to leave the facility on foot, that was for sure, and the motor pools would already be locked down.

"Is there room for three?"

"It will be cramped," Rachenkov admitted, holding back the urge to cough. _I must not appear weak. I have to be able to be strong, for Natalya's sake._

"Fine. If it's the only chance we'll take, we'll use the VUR."

"They gave it a proper name, actually," Rachenkov admitted. "They even named the damn thing partially after me."

"What?"

"They promised me a design bureau," he grinned between coughs. "The Rachenkov Design Bureau. It had a nice ring to it, but it was too little, too late. It's the Rachenkov-65, Rk-65 for short. The Russians were going to call it 'Sugrob,' what you'd probably refer to as 'Snowdrift,'" Rachenkov pronounced awkwardly. "My English is not very good."

"Hurry, professor!"

Rachenkov nodded. "Natalya, can you move?"

The Asian girl still hovered on the edge of consciousness. She looked up at him and let out a noise that was half moan, half affirmation.

"Let's go, Mr. NAPA VALLEY," Rachenkov pronounced with a sudden reservoir of inner strength. _We might even make it out alive._

The sounds of alert klaxons and crackling radios carried quite far into the snowy night, but it wasn't long before the sounds faded and they were in the large alert hangar.

"Any guards?"

"One on duty in a secure booth, but it's bulletproof."

"There's an air hole, isn't there?"

Rachenkov just stared at the man.

"One, about the height of your chest..."

NAPA VALLEY nodded, and in a motion with more fluidity and force than a hurricane, launched himself toward the door, breaking it down with his shoulder. Rachenkov saw him roll forward quickly up to a knee and fire a single shot from a white suppressed pistol that seemed to appear from nowhere.

"Any others?" he called back.

Rachenkov shook his head, stunned, as he helped Natalya regain her balance.

The professor led the way into the hangar's main space. NAPA made short work of the lock on the door with a few shots from his rifle.

"It's going to be a bit of a shock," Rachenkov warned him. "The design and execution are all Natalya's, and you know as well as I do the otherworldliness of her engineering ability."

"We don't have time to debate the niceties, Dr. Rachenkov."

"You know, I never received my doctorate."

"If not for scholarly aptitude, you deserve it for bravery, professor."

"You flatter an old man too much," he cracked a gravelly-voiced smile. "Come, it's right through this door."

NAPA VALLEY couldn't believe his eyes. He hadn't yet been able to smuggle in a Minox covert camera to the doctor for fear of his being searched, so the sight of the Sugrob hit him hard enough for him to lightly slacken his grip on the rifle.

"The Rk-65 Sugrob," Rachenkov extended his hand as if to introduce a friend. "The latest in Armed Slaved Weapon design. The world's first independently-balancing two-legged mechanical design with walking and running capabilities."

The machine was truly a snowdrift if NAPA had ever seen one. Its legs were thick, accented with exposed silver hydraulic tubes and armored electrical lines. It reminded him of a cutaway of human anatomy, as if the muscles and veins had been exposed and rendered a silvery, lethal white. The torso was large, even masculine; it was broadly armored about the shoulders and tapered to a thinner, streamlined mid-chest and waist. Armor plating took the place of pectoral and abdominal muscles; as if to accentuate the strength of the machine, the arms were equally armored and adorned with equipment and built-in weapons. The head was barrel-shaped, almost like an old sci-fi movie, with dead black holes for its eyes.

NAPA didn't even look at the integrated weapons. He saw mounted machine guns in the head and an evil-looking cannon sitting on the floor of the hangar. _Who knows what this Snowdrift could carry..._ NAPA thought as he evaluated the cannon. _That thing looks like it came from a field artillery gun..._

"How do we get in?"

"Climb up that ladder and under the head," Rachenkov directed, moving towards the industrial-plate metal ladder dangling from the side of the Sugrob. "Strap in the belts and I'll direct you to power it on."

NAPA stepped in front of the professor, who followed as he grabbed Natalya's wrists and hauled the girl over his back. As the professor followed, he hoisted himself into the cockpit and strapped in a five-point safety harness. He found a pair of foot pedals, and his arms dropped into the restraints. Each arm had a complex set of controls mounted on handgrips, like a flight stick, and he grasped them with some familiarity.

"Feels kind of like a helicopter..." he said out loud as he shrugged off his rifle, tossing it out the side of the cockpit. It clattered to the floor, thankfully not firing off a round. "I'd hate to leave them a present, but we can't clutter up the cockpit with that."

A crashing sound marked the detonation of a hand grenade nearby.

"They may have followed us!" NAPA hissed, turning to pull Natalya into the cockpit. There was no easy place to put the young Shepatavshiy, so he simply draped her arms through the auxiliary restraint loops behind the cockpit seat. She gently grabbed on to NAPA's upper chest, as if embracing him from behind. "Doctor, hurry up and get in!"

"You think I'm going with you in this thing?" Rachenkov smiled, shaking his head. "I never expected to leave this place alive, design bureau or not."

"Don't be crazy. I can carry you in the hands of this thing, can't I?"

"You'd probably crush me, knowing how much finesse your American pilots normally show," Rachenkov chuckled. "No, my friend, this is your time to shine. I would be an everyday rocket engineer if it was not for Natalya here. She is the key to all this. I do not matter in the least to the Sugrob, nor do I really matter to you in the grand scheme of things. I would just make more rockets. The West does not need another scientist like me."

"Dammit, professor Rachenkov! What are you trying to do?"

"Buy you time. Now go!" he hissed, coughing.

"You're in no condition to buy a sandwich, let alone time. Let me fight them off! You can start this thing up, and we'll _all_ escape!"

NAPA started to unbuckle the harness, not wanting to have this man die after so much effort. _He deserves a chance to live,_ NAPA thought, unbuckling the clasp and starting to climb out of the cockpit. _He deserves a chance to—_

The _click_ of a hammer cocking stopped him in his tracks. Dr. Rachenkov had somehow hung on to the Makarov pistol he had earlier, and was now holding it at NAPA VALLEY's head.

"If I can't get you and her out of here, I'll kill you, then her, and then fire on the weapon stores until this whole building blows up," Rachenkov hissed, his voice now a whisper from the stress on his scarred throat. "The charges you set wouldn't even matter. You know that I'd do it. The end of the Sugrob is more important than all of our lives put together, Natalya's included."

NAPA VALLEY stared him down, narrowing his hawk-sharp almond eyes. Rachenkov didn't move, still keeping his finger tight on the trigger of the Makarov.

"Go!" Rachenkov hissed. "I am trusting you to take this to the hands that can prevent it from fueling war all over the planet! You must find all the Shepatavshiy you can and guard them; prevent them from being used for such destructive ends!"

Slowly, NAPA put his hands up and nodded.

"Flip the Canopy switch by your left elbow to close the hatch, and then the Battery switches by your right wrist to charge the turbine. It'll take about a minute to spin up to full power. Those controls multiply your arm and leg movements by a factor of ten, what we call 'bilateral angle.' It's set to one, but this can go in increments of .1 up to two. That'd be your normal motions magnified twenty times. Be careful. Just walk like normal and you should be fine."

"Right." NAPA reached for the Canopy switches after he belted himself back in.

"One more thing," Rachenkov coughed harshly. "Tell your masters that this weapon will turn warfare upon its head and bring it far into the future. The introduction of the Sugrob will have the same effect on the world as introducing gunpowder would have on the Mongols. It will multiply brutality and destruction to countless levels."

Another hand grenade exploded in the entry to the hangar.

"Go!"

NAPA nodded, closing his eyes, and tossed his hair quickly out of his way. The Canopy switch was flipped, and the last thing he saw were the cold, hard eyes of Dr. Gregor Rachenkov, the last folds of a smile on the corners of his face.

"Good luck, doctor," NAPA VALLEY breathed as the whine of the turbine started to kick in.

Analog displays indicating Pressure, Power, Ammunition, and Angle started to come to life, the needles moving to their neutral starting positions. The whine of the turbines kicked into a roaring groan as their associated generators kicked in. Two gunshots echoed close to the cockpit, and NAPA felt Natalya throw her arms around his chest, almost as a reflex.

"Don't worry," he said, taking off his white arctic-warfare gloves and patting her surprisingly soft hands. "I'll have you out of here soon."

The whine and roar couldn't totally overpower the crescendo of automatic-rifle fire from outside the cockpit and its accompanying gurgling, strained scream.

_My dear... I hope I have been worthy of you. Our parting was early. Maybe I did something good on this earth to make up for being so late._

Gregor Rachenberg died a Jew, never overtly showing his faith, but whispering gently in Hebrew as he fell to the floor, tumbling down the steps of the ladder in a heap. By the time he reached the bottom rung, his eyes were glazed over, lifeless.

The KGB troops rushed towards Rachenkov, covering each other's advances with caution and checking the corners of the hangar. "It's clear!" the private on point called out, patting Rachenkov's body down for weapons as he kicked the Makarov away.

"That thing is going to activate!" the sergeant cried out, suddenly noticing the optical sensor eyes turn blue and the head turn to look at them.

NAPA VALLEY couldn't hear the sergeant over the generators and turbines, but he was an expert lip-reader, and the visual feed from the outside was surprisingly clear. He saw the readout on the central monitor that had blinked on, with a thermal and night-vision view backing it up.

"This is some pretty impressive hardware," NAPA breathed. "Did you do this?" He turned to look at Natalya, who managed a weak smile.

A light blinked on beneath the Angle gauge. It read **READY FOR COMBAT** in bold Cyrillic letters.

NAPA felt the resistance of the ground push back through the hydraulic arms as he hefted the Sugrob up, coming up to stand almost as if it were natural. He heard a loud _hiss_ and saw steam clouds on the peripheries of the visual monitor. The turbine was running at a loud whine, the generators inaudible due to their fast running speeds. He flicked a switch near a trigger on the left and right control sticks, assuming it was an arming switch for something. He was rewarded with a targeting reticle on the main monitor.

_I wish this thing could show my emotions,_ NAPA thought, narrowing his eyes. _I wonder what a thirty-foot tall machine looks like when it's angry?_

He tilted a rotational hat switch on the right control stick. The head of the unit turned and the targeting reticle centering on the chest of the KGB sergeant after a moment's fine-tuning.

He didn't think twice before he pulled both the triggers on the control sticks.

**September 5th, 1981  
MITHPAC Headquarters  
Sydney, Australia  
10:00 PM local time**

The faucets turned shut with an unoiled _squik_ noise, and she toweled herself off rather quickly. In a few moments, she was back in the undress MITHRIL khakis that were required on-base.

_I really am doing this,_ she thought as she combed her hair into place and secured it into a serviceable ponytail. _I do think that I've moved so much farther onward with my life after the war. The Mossad and MITHRIL have really brought me to the points at which I needed—and still need—to be._

She gave herself one final check, looking at herself in the mirror. Her bluish-gray eyes gazed back at her.

"I can do this," she said out loud to the empty locker room. "I will do this."

A few footsteps brought her to the door to the mens' lockers out in the hall. "What's taking you guys so long?" she yelled. "We're supposed to be on shift in ten minutes!"

**October 10th, 1973**  
**The Sinai  
4:53 PM**

The tearing sound of two heavy shells roared past Gef's ears, but in the wrong direction—they flew _towards_ the tank, both hitting it squarely at the joint where the domed turret met the hull. She couldn't feel the fire of the two massive explosions, but she looked down just in time to see the turret itself pop off and fly forty meters into the air before crashing down to earth.

She stared, wide-eyed, as two more rounds, their flights marked by phosphorous tracers, flew towards the horizon. The angry _PAKOOM_ of their firing reached her just as both seemed to hit their targets; plumes of fire marked their impact points.

"What..."

She turned, only to face down a sudden sandstorm. As a cloud of desert sand and waste blew up around her, she reflexively covered her face with her arms. In a moment, the wind died down, and she looked back up.

It was standing in front of her, a huge, human-like metallic... _something..._

Where muscles and bones should be, she saw patched, exposed wires and hydraulics that looked as if they were bleeding dark-crimson hydraulic fluid at some points. Armor was all over the beast, slapped down in all conceivable colors: dead steel, black, desert tan, but all seemed to be over a heavily abused snow-white original coat. Its head was a chipped-down barrel shape, its surprisingly blue human-like eyes augmented with what appeared to be a radar dish, willy-nilly pods, cannons, missiles, rockets, and other weapons. It carried a large cannon in its right hand that looked like—no, it _was_ an Israeli artillery piece, wielded like a rifle. The machine sighted down it for a moment before it turned to look at her, dropping down to a knee and propping itself up on its huge mechanical hands.

Its head bent down at a strange angle, and she saw someone emerge from it. Silhouetted against the setting sun in the west, she saw a hawkish face and a lean, muscular build.

He managed to rappel down a line that he threw from the cockpit, landing firmly on two feet and walking towards her.

"I saw what you did," the man with the chiseled features, almond-shaped hawk-black eyes, and stubble-pocked chin said, looking at her with a strange respect. "Do you want for it never to happen again to anyone?"

He crossed his arms over the black, sectionally-armored jumpsuit that he wore. A shield-like faded silhouette was over the right breast where a unit patch might have been.

"W-what... what do you mean?" Gef almost quivered.

"This will never change," he swept his hand over the horizon. "Arab and Jew, Soviet and American, black and white, Us and Them... humans will never change on their path," he opined, almost sadly. "They will never change, so we must change for them."

Gef felt tears running down her eyes again. Before she knew it, she had thrown her arms around his broad shoulders, bawling like a child into her shoulder.

"Please kill me!" she wept. "Kill me, end my life! Take me away from here! Just let it all come to an end already!"

NAPA VALLEY patted her on the back. He had known that somewhere, somehow, there had to be a Whispered in this region.

"I will tell you what you can do so that you can not only live, but to stop all of this."

She looked up at him, stormy eyes already quivering. "Tell me what to do."

**To be continued...**

**Afterword A/N and glossary:**

**The Yom Kippur War:** Check your history books or Wikipedia for more info, but the long and short of it is that a buildup of tensions led by then-president of Egypt, Anwar Sadat, rallied the Arab nations surrounding Israel (As well as most Arab nations) to invade on the eve of Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar. More strategically speaking, most of the Israeli Defense Force was off-duty on that day.

The war lasted for the better part of the month, a rather slow pace for the IDF, which had turned the 1967 invasion into the conflict now known as the Six-Day War. The much-vaunted Bar Lev line of defense was breached on the first day of the conflict by the Egyptian Army, and the Sinai was largely reclaimed. Later UN intervention returned possession of the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt, who had initially held the legal claim to the area before Israel took it over in the 1967 war.

The war was speculated to be a testing ground for the current generation of weapons systems for East and West. Egypt had made a concerted effort to arm itself with cutting-edge Soviet weapons, including the new, then-powerful T-62 tank, and Israel had the latest export version of the M-60 battle tank. However, no true exposition of the war as a weapons testing ground has ever emerged as concrete evidence.


	9. This is the Dead Land, This is Cactus La...

**A/N:** Wooo! FMP? Fumoffu! Is slated for a May 10th release date according to Suncoast! Finally, we get the proper dub treatment.

Katsucon was a BLAST. I need to post the report in my LJ, but the long and short of it was that my entry as Taishi, performing in our Communist Party of Anime sketch, got some real acclaim for originality, as well as props from the few people who recognized me. ComiPa gets no cosplay love, but I shouldn't whine about that in a Full Metal Panic! fanfic.

Anyway, apologies for the lateness, but we're ramping up now. Props as always to Lakewood and Anysia for beta work and moral support.

I also wanted to point out something that Wild Goose 01 brought up in his recent review. I am trying to place this story 100 within Shoji Gato's canon, as described in the novels that Boku-tachi dot net (lousy link-killing in fanfiction dot net... grumble) has translated into English. If anyone who has access to novels that Boku-tachi has not yet translated and can inform me of any canon that I do not know of, please let me know. I am striving to make a realistic FMP! precursor, and I try to be as diligent as possible. All canon corrections will be made. Also, yes, that is the same McAllen as in the series.

In any case, I base this off of Owaru Day by Day and Dancing Very Merry Christmas, as well as the English-translated FMP! artbook (It's around 10 on Ebay and other places; it's invaluable for any fan and well worth the price), both of which have some hints at the characters' pasts. It also touches upon other bits and pieces of history that FMP! uses, and it's something of my primary resource.

Anyway, I am aware of Sousuke's parents being killed in a plane crash, so I want to immediately deny that NAPA VALLEY and Natalya are Sousuke's parents. After all, we only know NAPA VALLEY as Richard Sonoma, not Richard Sagara, and as far as she exists, Natalya has no true name... so no, they are not Sousuke's parents. You'll have to keep reading to find out more.

**A/N addendum, March 2nd:** I got injured pretty badly at aikido, and my right shoulder (and arm) are out of commission for at least a week. I, like an idiot, don't E-mail my chapters to myself so I can work on them at home, and chapter 9 just needed about another paragraph before it could go out for beta-ing. :-( I'm not happy about this, and I apologize to everyone who read this far and wants more. In lieu of hopes getting better, please leave a good, critical review so I can help make my writing better. :-)

Enough babble. On with the show!

* * *

"**The Hollow Men" by T.S. Eliot, third canto**

"This is the dead land  
This is cactus land  
Here the stone images  
Are raised, here they receive  
The supplication of a dead man's hand  
Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this  
In death's other kingdom  
Waking alone  
At the hour when we are  
Trembling with tenderness  
Lips that would kiss  
Form prayers to broken stone."

* * *

_**8: This is the Dead Land, This is Cactus Land**_

* * *

**MITHPAC Headquarters Command Center **  
**Sydney, Australia  
September 6th, 1981  
****10:47 PM**

The connection from Rome had been open for the better part of an hour on a dedicated satellite line. Small crowds of Intel analysts had pulled the records from the Cheltenham MARSUPIAL file and were poring over the regional photos. They had taken over the command center with sheer mass alone during the early end of the night shift.

Despite the concerted analyses with everything from spectrographic sensors to magnifying glasses, it was all for naught. There wasn't a single grain of sand out of place in the past week's archives.

"Shee-it," Mark said with a lowwhistle. "They snuck 'em right under the Americans' satellites."

Kenji compared a low-angle shot that the KH-11 had taken on a second pass, just intercepted three minutes ago. An hour after the first photos were taken, the side-looking cameras were able to get good shadow shots of the battlefield. The forty square kilometers that the satellite had snapped only showed the same thing as before: wrecked Egyptian and Israeli armored vehicles, and no Leapfrog leg.

"It looks as if two company-strength units went into a set-piece engagement." He traced some circles with a dry-erase marker on a copy of a photo. "The tanks were lined up roughly parallel to each other before they started firing... but why would they do that?"

"It certainly runs counter to not only Egyptian and Israeli tactical doctrine, but American and Soviet as well." Gef scratched her head. "Normally, it's the artillery that'll deploy parallel to the battle line, but that's a fairly long distance back. Why do it with tanks?"

"I can't even imagine. The Egyptians are already well over the border if the coordinates are correct, and if they're bringing tanks, I'm pretty sure that the IDF wouldn't send more tanks just to say hello." Mark tapped the original photo sent from MITHLANT. "Look. Most of these wrecks are right on those lines, but almost all the others are behind both sides' operational areas. It looks like some of them were trying to retreat from the battle."

Kenji shook his head. "Armored warfare isn't built on tactical retreats. It's too easy to move forward and hold the territory if a breach in the line is exploited. I doubt that either side would fall back from each other. Quite the opposite; if they're fighting, they'd keep pushing forward at every opportunity."

"So what happened here, then?" Gef sighed as a courier from Intel brought up a fresh set of photos, sent by a MARSUPIAL system outside of Moscow, where a group of mechanized gazelles surreptitiously gathered taiga grass and intelligence from the Soviet Kosmos-1011 photorecon satellite.

"A whole clusterfuck, that's what," Kenji harrumphed.

Gef and Mark turned to look at him. "Well, I'll be damned," Mark commented, grinning. "The boy can curse!"

"Just only when I'm very enraged," Kenji assured him.

Gef raised an eyebrow. "Enraged? Kenji, you look like you're kicking back with a martini! Captain Calmness over here..." Gef ribbed, grinning.

Kenji raised a thin eyebrow. "Trust me, Gef, I am very stressed-out over this entire issue. I don't like being caged up like this. We may be Intel personnel, but we're field intel, not desk jocks."

"Might as well pitch in when we can." Mark shrugged. "Ain't got no deployment orders yet."

"Well, at least we know the Russians see the same things we do." Gef leafed through the intercepted photos from the Soviet satellite. "Hell, the orbit is almost the same as the American KH-11."

The three MITHRIL operatives sipped their coffee almost simultaneously.

"Do we have anyone from the Soviet or American armies who trained these guys?" Kenji asked nobody in particular. "Maybe if we had someone with armor experience, they could take a look at it from a ground-pounder's view."

Mark shook his head. "Boris Vladimirov was rotated back to MITHSOUTH to help with their counterinsurgent training. We also had Jack Alexander from the Buffalo Cav, but he's gone in undercover back at Fort Irwin. He's getting some good human intelligence on the Army's OPFOR is hesitant to fake a deployment order to get him out."

"Great. All this is compounded by the leg being gone all of a sudden." Gef matched a print from a photo marked twelve hours ago to the most recent downlinks. "It was there in the evening, and now it's gone. What could have brought it out?"

"There's no visible tracks of heavy cargo vehicles or transporter trucks near the wreck where the leg was that we can tell," Mark pointed out. "Not even the KH-11 can get an accurate readout of how that's all shifted."

"Airlift?" Kenji suggested.

"Could be. We have no idea how heavy that leg is, but it wouldn't take that long to attach it and haul it out."

"There's not much wind in the Sinai, though. We'd have plenty of disturbed sand near the leg from rotor blast." Gef shook her head. "Besides, the closest air force with heavy-cargo helicopters is the Egyptian 17th Tactical Support Wing, and they're on the outskirts of Cairo. The IAF wouldn't allow _any_ helicopter to get this far inside the border without blowing them out of the sky."

"So what do we tell the General?" Mark threw up his arms in exasperation.

Kenji slumped back into the office chair he had appropriated from an empty comm station. "We tell him that we don't have any information to conclude an analysis," he pitched. "Quite honestly, it could have been destroyed."

"That's unlikely, though," Mark pointed out. "Nobody knows what the hell that thing is—the Egyptians, the Israelis, the Warsaw Pact and NATO—hell, not even us, which means a lot. You think that they'd blow it to pieces so quickly? Hell, it looked like it already got destroyed once."

"Maybe someone wanted to finish the job." Kenji crossed his stout, muscular arms, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "We haven't the faintest idea as to how it got there, just that it was... well... _there._ Could have been one of the wars, maybe?"

General Sachar was down in the command center in a few moments' time, having emerged from a briefing on the recent development. "I just had a junior colonel sugarcoat the fact that the only existing physical evidence of the Leapfrog has been nicked," Sachar said with a sigh. "Any chance I could see the hard data?"

"Of course, sir," Kenji affirmed, handing over the small stack of photos.

"From my untrained eye, it looks like explosions amongst sand dunes," the general joked _sotto voce_. "Anyone have any ideas at all?"

Silence.

Sachar sighed. "Wonderful. One leg usually doesn't just up and walk away, folks, it takes two to do that. No treads, no backblast, no drag marks, nothing?"

"We checked back twelve hours ago, when the last satellite pass occurred, sir. There's no evidence of any intact vehicles transiting the area."

Sachar frowned. "Mark, what was the weather forecast for the western Sinai for the past couple of days?"

Mark blinked, then slapped his forehead. "Hot, dry, and windy," he grumbled, sifting through some papers. "According to the Israeli National Meteorological Service sideband, it's been gusting up to forty kilometers per hour since Tuesday."

"So that blows away any tracks," Gef pointed out. "High-profile vehicles would have to take it slow, and that means any big engineering tracks would be visible before and after."

"Nothing with wheels, either," Mark tossed in. "A deuce-and-a-half truck would get blown right over if it's careenin' over dunes with that sort of wind."

"Same with choppers. The Egyptians' heaviest-capacity helo is a Hip, and I doubt they handle well in heavy gusts." Gef knew from experience. Black September had once run an operation to steal a Hip captured by the Israelis. She was in the infiltration team and had gotten a very impromptu hands-on lesson in chopper-jacking.

"So we're back to square one, then," Mark sulked.

The three petty officers and the General let out a collective sigh.

"Nothing in the wider-area shots?" Kenji asked nobody in particular.

"Photo!" Mark called out. "You get anything from the next couple of passes?"

"The first download didn't have any items of interest," a voice from a few desks down responded, obviously harried. "Next pass is the Soviets' Kosmos-1011 in seventy-five minutes, but we don't expect much."

"Then it had to be something else." Kenji scratched his chin thoughtfully. "It had to be another one."

"Another Leapfrog?" Sachar raised an eyebrow in disbelief.

"What else is there? We've ruled out airlift and wheeled ground transport. If another one just waltzed or leapt on in, it'd be able to move around and just leave miniature dunes in the sand. The wind would take care of anything else."

"That's a pretty big leap of analysis." Sachar raised an eyebrow, only partly conscious of his pun. "As far as we know, they only had one of those, and it looks like its wreckage was there originally."

"We have no concrete data since 1965, General. They might have been able to throw something together and get it into the area."

"They could have sealifted it out..." Mark picked up his partner's line of thinking, tapping the photos with two fingers. "It hops, skips, and jumps all the way to the Suez Canal or even the Red Sea or the Mediterranean."

"Gotta be the Med. Rumani is too far north." Sachar pulled a map of the Sinai next to the photos. "From there, they could take it to a cargo ship..."

The general looked up. "Gef, get on the line to MITHCENT right away. Tell them to start pulling in the net on cargo ships heading out of the Med. It'll take them at least five days running at high speed to reach the Bosporus Straits, a week to reach Gibraltar. But if they take it through the Suez Canal, we're already too late to close the canal locks."

Gef nodded, reaching for a phone and dialing the communication center for MITHCENT in Tel Aviv.

"Mark, Kenji, you're going to fill in for Fehu and Berkana. Get to the airport by the fastest available transport. We'll have the Herky-bird hop you to Diego and we'll proceed on the ground from there."

"By 'fastest available transport,' sir, do you mean we can—"

The set of keys bearing the symbol of a black, rearing horse on a yellow rectangle were already in the air. Mark reached out to catch them, but Kenji extended himself in a rare leap right in their path.

"You can ride shotgun," Kenji quipped, tucking the keys securely in his pocket.

"Only because you're a tricky little bastard," Mark grumbled.

"I'll be a few minutes behind you guys," Gef tossed over her shoulder as she covered the phone's mouthpiece with her hand. "You'll probably need backup if we're going to get through this. MITHCENT is trying to scramble a response team together, but they're not optimistic."

Mark gave a sloppy, informal salute. "You got it, sar-major," he snapped off affirmatively. "See you at the airport."

**Ground level**  
**A few minutes later**

The alleyway between the old Sydney synagogue and the tobacconist was usually a quiet one, just one of many secret entrances to MITHPAC headquarters. Despite the Sydney City Council's plans to develop the Hyde Park area into a shopping and tourist district, there was always some highly entrenched opposition to deal with. Nobody had to know why the council members were so opposed to the development of the area, but it was always a narrow defeat on a rezoning proposal.

MITHPAC's secret entrance itself was a fairly obvious one: a battered green metal door leading into what appeared to be the brick wall of the synagogue. However, the door wouldn't open unless the hands grasping it had fingerprints that were recognized by the highly sensitive doorknob itself. Gloves or unrecognized prints would throw it into an instant lock.

Fortunately, exiting was just a matter of opening the door hard enough to dislodge the garbage bag of rotting orange rinds that was kept as a passive defense.

"Worst part of my day," Mark grumbled. "Few things in life are worse than havin' to sleep on a C-130 with a belly fulla coffee, let alone worry how you're gonna get that coffee_ out_ of your belly..."

"You're just jealous because I get to drive," Kenji observed, grinning, as he held the door open for Mark.

"Damn right I am!"

"You can drive on the way back. How about that?"

"Yeah, yeah. Gimme a hand with this thing."

It took both men's full strength to move the small Dumpster aside on its casters. After they'd cleared enough space, they swung out the chain-link fence, revealing a large blue tarpaulin covering a low, sleek shape.

"No car thieves yet, huh?" Mark grabbed one end of the tarp.

"I doubt they'd make it past the smell."

Without a word between them, they pulled the tarp back with the gentleness of a father dressing his newborn child. It gave way to the polished, perfectly-waxed black paint of a 1976 Ferrari 512BB, sitting low to the ground; its chromed grille, wheels, and body panels seemed to resonate with the reflected yellow glare of the low-sodium streetlights in the quiet Sydney night.

Kenji turned the key after adjusting the seats for his stature. The V-12 engine started up and roared to life with a growl, sounding as smooth as the tan leather seats and interior appointments felt.

"Buckle up," he reminded Mark superficially.

"No need to," Mark grinned. "You drive this thing like an old lady."

"No complaints from the peanut gallery, please," Kenji grinned back. "Diplomatic or police?"

"I feel rather adventurous, my friend," Mark quipped in a faked British accent. "Shall we be representatives to Her Majesty?"

"Sounds like a plan." Kenji flipped an unmarked switch hidden under the steering column.

Outside the car, the triangular-sectioned license plates flipped to mark the car with diplomatic tags, ensuring that no zealous police officers would stop the car. The Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations made it clear that unwanted touching of the car by a police officer or government agent would lead to serious trouble.

The transmission shifted into gear with a well-engineered throw of the shifter knob, and Kenji eased the car out, signaling his way into the light traffic. As he took the right turn onto Elizabeth Street, he gunned the engine, easily working the clutch and shift through second and up through third. Mark let out a loud rebel yell as they dashed towards Sydney International at almost eighty miles per hour.

**Approximately 50 miles south of Feyzabad, Afghanistan**  
**75 miles east of the Badakhshan provincial border  
****9:37 AM local time**

The flight had been a harrowing one so far.

Kalinin had traded off the guard position over the pilot with Sergeant Kadashvili, and not even the roar of the Hind's turboshaft engines could fully drown out the radio chatter from Konduz Base.

"We are now officially MIA," Kalinin informed Kuyvishev and Danilenko. "From what I could hear past the pilot's headphones, General Petrov believes that the raiders were repulsed and we either got lost or downed in the fighting."

"Do you think that Colonel Rozhkov will send troops out after us, comrade lieutenant?" Danilenko ventured, setting aside his Dragunov in a weapon rack behind his head.

"I doubt it." Kalinin shook his head. "Misha Il'ych may be KGB, but he knows the strategic and tactical realities here. He should. We were in the same classes at the Frunze Academy. He was assistant colonel to the 101st Guards Airborne Division's Operational Maneuver Group before he requested to go to the KGB. If there's anyone who knows when and how to fight, it's him."

Danilenko nodded. "I'm surprised that he wouldn't already try what we're doing right now, though."

"I'd bet even money that he did," Sergeant Kadashvili quipped. "Hell, maybe the Helmaj are just an elaborate ruse to root out traitors and rogues like us."

The sergeant's hearty laugh didn't quite reach the two low-ranking noncoms. Danilenko and Kuyvishev traded a very nervous look. Treason was a capital crime for a Soviet citizen, but that citizen's family would be the one to bear the real punishment of the state.

The _spang_ of a ricocheting bullet echoed through the cabin of the Hind, followed by several more in rapid succession.

"We're taking small-arms fire from those cliffs at three o'clock," the gunner called out.

"I don't care where you're going or how fast you need to get there," the pilot yelled to his captors, "but I'm going to start evasive maneuvers. You can die when you get there, but I'm going back alive!"

The chopper reefed in a sharp right turn, its nose dipping low to rapidly pick up speed. Kadashvili had managed to grab hold of a metal bar behind the pilot's cockpit, but Lieutenant Kalinin was strapped into the bench beside the cargo door. He kept venturing looks outside, even occasionally catching the cone-shaped muzzle flashes of AK-47s from the ridgeline of the valley they were passing through.

"Nothing too horrible, unless they score a hit on a rotor or through the engine intake," Kalinin said calmly as he turned back to his men. "Probably just a local tribe of _mudje._"

"I hope you're right, comrade lieutenant," Kuyvishev swallowed nervously.

"It's nothing to worry about, Corporal." Kalinin patted him on the shoulder as a dent suddenly appeared in the armored sidewall, just above one of the windows. "See? The Hind's armor is basically impenetrable even to 7.62mm rounds. This must have come from a AK, otherwise there'd be more of these." He knocked on the dent with his knuckles. "Considering how deep we are in enemy territory, I'm surprised we haven't run into more enemies."

Coupled by Sergeant Malenko's expert evasive tactics and quick adjustments on the controls, the Hind dipped between two craggy hills and left the small valley of _mudjehedeen_ positions rapidly behind them.

"We've dropped fairly low, Lieutenant," Kadashvili warned from the cockpit. "Should I have him take us up higher?"

Kalinin shook his head. "We'll have no element of surprise if they see us coming. Keep us low. Where are we, Sergeant?"

Kadashvili checked the current heading of the Hind and checked the terrain surrounding them against his own map. "On the eastern edge of grid coordinates 15/70," he replied.

"Another hour's flight. Keep your eye on him, Sergeant," Kalinin reminded.

"_Da, tovarisch leytenant!"_

* * *

On the ground, two pairs of eyes saw the glimmer of sunlight reflecting off the canopy joints of the Hind. It was easy to spot the chopper from almost ten miles off, what with the Zeiss binoculars that neither the Soviets carried nor the Americans shipped to the _mudjehedeen_ tribes nearby. 

The taller man appeared to be of different stock than the normal _mudje_ fighter. His swarthy, mustached face was tanned from the desert-like environment, but it was not the darker Arabic or olive Persian skin tone that made up the majority of Afghanistan's many diverse ethnic groups. Instead, it was a milder, drab-like fleshy dark yellow, almost as if he were of mixed Asian descent. It was he who followed the helicopter through binoculars as a shorter man, lacking the mustache but sharing the same tan and tone of his skin, crouched low in preparation.

"Stakalav yatalari," he said calmly, lowering the binoculars on their strap and crouching down on one knee and lifting the microphone to a sophisticated-looking backpack radio. "Kakhtar'val Roosianit helikopatar, rakal kolomet."

"Shtara!" The smaller man nodded twice, then pulled the camouflage netting off of the large olive-drab box, unveiling U.S. ARMY FIM-92A MANPADS in spraypainted white stencils.

* * *

"Now passing through grid coordinates 16/71. Ten miles from designated drop zone." Kadashvili beckoned Private Danilenko to the front. "Cover this man, Private. I'm going back to plan out a little." 

"Right away, comrade sergeant!" Danilenko snapped to his feet and made his way to the front office of the helicopter.

"What's the plan, Sergeant?" Kalinin asked, dropping the 'comrade' honorific.

"We've only got that blade to work with," Kuyvishev grumbled, holding up the Helmaj dagger to the map to match coordinates once again. "We can't assume much given our complete lack of strategic intel on the Helmaj's operations, so we might just have to do a systematic search of the entire area."

"That's something like forty square kilometers, comrade lieutenant. Do we have enough food and water to cover that area?"

"We'll stick to the helicopter as much as possible. I'm sure we have plenty of fuel in this beast, don't we, Danilenko?"

"The main fuselage tanks look like they have an hour and a half, comrade lieutenant." Danilenko checked over the pilot's shoulder. "We won't have much time to loiter."

Kalinin nodded. "This is your last chance to back out, everyone. If you want to go back, I'm going to have our friend drop off the sergeant and myself. We'll look for the Helmaj base and radio it in ourselves. You can catch the ride back to Konduz and say it was just my maniacal plan."

"I'm with you, Lieutenant Kalinin!" Danilenko instantly replied. "If we don't stop the Helmaj from here, they're just going to tie up the Soviet Army in Afghanistan even worse than the _mudjehedeen_ already are!"

"You won't be able to speak to them if I can't help you, comrade lieutenant," Kuyvishev grinned.

"A wonderful little band of thieves you all are," Malenko grumbled to himself.

* * *

The Stinger missile was designed to be assembled without any sophisticated instructions: match the launcher tube to the targeting unit at the red rings, then twist in the direction of the arrows. It was just as easy to aim thanks to simple silhouettes spraypainted onto the launcher at the Raytheon manufacturing plant. 

The shorter man flipped down the targeting scope, tracking the Hind as it traversed an almost perpendicular line across his field of view from left to right. It wasn't that hard to gauge the distance, thanks to the rangefinder lines in the scope.

When the Hind was within the 1.5-mile range of the antiaircraft missile, the man elevated the launcher a few degrees and waited for the missile to lock on. A warbling _tweeeeee_ indicated that the supercooled nitrogen heat sensor had firmly found itself a target and was waiting for release.

He let out a cry of "Helmajin tarook!" as he flipped the safety off of the right-handed grip and squeezed the red trigger.

The Stinger missile, only five of which had yet been sent from the United States to the _mudjehedeen_, leapt out of the launcher as the trigger tripped a compressed-gas catapult to fling the missile safely away from its launch point. It was blown almost forty feet in the air until the rocket motor kicked in and the missile raced off, curving towards the Hind.

"_Incoming missile!_"

Malenkov turned hsi head towards the white smoke trail rapidly closing in from the ground. Without warning his passenger/captors, he stomped hard on the right rudder pedal and threw his cyclic control to the right, spinning the helicopter and banking it sharply to the right. A shove forward on the vertical control stick dropped the helicopter towards the ground.

Danilenko was rapidly thrown to the left wall of the chopper, hitting his head hard on the bulkhead of the cockpit. The other men, all sitting on the left cargo seats, were pinned there by the G-forces of the hard turn. Their stomachs drifted as the helicopter descended and picked up speed again.

The _pop-pop-pop_ of the Hind's flare dispensers stunned the men as the bright red magnesium charges drifted out of the rear, trying desperately to fool the missile as Malenkov tried to face it head-on.

"Firing rockets!" the gunner called out, desperately triggering his UV-57 unguided rockets in an attempt to spook anyone on the ground into moving. The singular, rapid_svarooosh_ of ripple-firing rockets was followed by a series of explosions as the swift projectiles impacted on the ground.

The Stinger continued its merciless pursuit of the Hind, merely yards from the hot exhaust trails of the turboshafts when Malenkov was able to turn the helicopter in a rapid 180-degree turn. Popping the flares was a stroke of genius; the system was new to the Hind-D, but Malenkov knew the chopper well enough to make use of it.

Just moments before it hit the flares, Malenkov's quick sinking maneuver got the massive rotor clear of the missile's flight path. Seeing the heat sources that it thought it was aiming for, the merciless robotic brain of the missile commanded itself to detonate the warhead.

The Hind shook from the explosion of the ten-pound warhead, nothing significant in terms of actual strength, but enough to cause a hail of fragments to flood the space where the engines would have been.

"Nicks in the rotor!" Malenkov called out. "UHF and IFF antennas are gone, tail rotor backup hydraulics are down. Primaries are still good. Did you get anyone?"

"I've got a two-man team at our two o'clock!" the gunner called out. "They haven't—wait, they've seen us! They're readying another missile!"

"Weapons are free!" Malenkov shouted in reply.

On the ground, the shorter man was rapidly trying to assemble the second Stinger in the "coffin" box when the explosion of 57mm rockets around their position threw a shower of stone shards and fragments into the air.

The two men ran, retrieving two previously-camouflaged assault rifles and firing at the helicopter.

"These guys are good shots!" the gunner observed as the rounds they fired squarely impacted against his thick bulletproof canopy. It was like a shower of sparks against the window, which was fortunately made of thick, nearly-impenetrable Lexan plastic.

"It doesn't matter! Kill them already!"

The two men saw that there wasn't much left they could do as the four-barreled Gatling gun started to track them. The helicopter had slowed and was little more than a half-mile away.

"It looks like there's about to be two less Helmaj in the world." The gunner grinned as he lined up the heads-up display sight on the two men.

"Don't kill them!" Kalinin yelled, helping Danilenko back to his feet and back to consciousness. "We need them alive!"

"They shoot at us, they die!" the gunner shouted back, squeezing the trigger.

The Gatling gun started spinning, then it began to fire, the electrically-controlled turret moving ever so slightly to correct its aim from the recoil of the four .50-caliber barrels. The two Helmaj dove to one side each, rolling as the cigar-sized bullets kicked up dirt along a path between the two of them. The tall man was the first to dash perpendicular to the cannon as it tracked them, spewing out shells and casings all along.

"Stand still, you Helmaj bastard!" the gunner cursed, firing another stream of rockets. "Sergeant, translate us above their position! Get me as close as you can to them!"

"Takhtal kolrak!" the tall man screamed as he dove to the ground, just as a rocket exploded twenty feet behind him. "KATAL!"

"Halam!" the short man replied, hefting his rifle. The tall man ran straight for the chopper as it lowered its nose to close in. The shorter man, though, ran off to the left of the Hind.

"They split up. Dammit!" Malenkov felt the pistol at his helmet again as Kalnin made his way to the cockpit. "Comrade lieutenant, if you kill me now, we all die in the crash, so leave me the _fuck_ alone while I try to take out two goddamn annoyances on the ground!"

"Kill them and you'll be next, comrade sergeant!" Kalinin growled.

The tall man pulled a grenade from the bandolier across his chest, dropping it into the breech of the old American M-79 slung on his back. He stopped running, dropping to a knee, but aimed the M-79 only with his left hand. He reached behind his back with his right, drawing a golden, ornate dagger and using his teeth to wrest its sheath free.

He saw the Gatling gun turn to face him; he stared the four-barreled weapon down as if facing the Devil himself.

"HELMAJIN TAROOK!" he yelled out, almost proudly, as he thrust his dagger upward into the air and fired the 40mm grenade from the M-79.

The _braaaaaa_ of the Gatling gun's high-speed firing drowned out Kalinin's threats.

"Target's dead!" the gunner called out, straining against an evasive slide to the right. The grenade went wild, missing the chopper, as Malenko stabilized the aircraft.

"Confirmed!" Malenkov replied, his sharp eyes picking out the prostate form of the dead Helmaj. _Nobody can survive a half-second burst from a Yakushev-Borzov,_ he thought triumphantly."Where's the other one?"

"Lost the target. Take us up and put us in a search patt—"

The Hind leapt upwards and tilted to the side wildly as an explosion erupted right under it, throwing the flight crew and soldiers against their restraints and bulkheads.

The shorter Helmaj lowered his grenade launcher in satisfaction, having run right under the helicopter as it went after his partner. Seeing the glint of the taller man's gold dagger had locked him in, knowing that he had already decided to give his life. It was not in vain, though, as he had managed to plant his 40mm high-explosive grenade right in the vulnerable underbelly of the Hind.

"Primary flight hydraulics damaged! Engine one is on fire, extinguishers are not responding!"

"We've lost the rocket pods and Swatters! Jettisoning now!"

The left-side engine of the Hind was emitting flames and smoke as the helicopter began to spiral in mid-air, throwing its occupants to the right as it spun. Malenkov stomped hard on the left rudder pedal and held it, trying to get them moving before they bottomed out. Showers of sparks and thick, black smoke erupted from the gunner's cockpit, and a series of honking alarms went off.

"We're autorotating down! Strap in and hold on!" Malenkov screamed, barely able to straighten out the spiraling flight path of the helicopter.

Kalinin and his men had taken a hard hit from the fragments of the explosion, which had blown the entire underbelly of the chopper clean away. They had a clear frame of reference, able to look directly at the spinning, rapidly approaching ground.

"The Helmaj really are everything we feared, eh, comrade lieutenant!" Kadashvili yelled over the sound of alarms and the single remaining turboshaft engine, compounded by the windblast into the cargo area.

Kalinin narrowed his eyes and reached for the handholds of the bench seat. "Brace yourselves!" he ordered. "We're not out of this yet!"

The lone remaining Helmaj observed the chopper dive, spiraling into the ground, until it impacted hard on its right side. The heavily armored fuel tanks did their job and didn't explode, but the helicopter cartwheeled on its right wing, its tail boom rending with a screech of metal as it struck the ground. The spinning rotor blades snapped off in segments, flying willy-nilly across the landscape before the helicopter settled on its left side and then its nose. It eventually fell over onto its topside after the heavily-armored cockpits gave under the multi-ton weight of the Hind.

He walked back to his assault rifle—an American M-16A2, still not yet in the hands of front-line soldiers—and slung the old grenade launcher over his shoulder. Silently, the Helmaj soldier beckoned a complex hand signal, and a short, ululating battlecry wafted out from a few hundred yards behind him.

Kalinin didn't bother checking Malenko and the gunner as he dangled, upside-down, in the cargo section of the Hind. He only needed to look at the pilot and see the disjointed angle of his head to know that the man had died on impact. The gunner's cockpit had been crushed inwards from the fall on the nose.

"Everyone all right?" Kalinin asked, coming back to his bearings.

"My back hurts from earlier, but I am alive, sir," Danilenko tentatively replied.

"I know I sprained my wrist, and the Dragunov's infrared scope attachment is shattered. The optical sight is fine. Don't know about my legs yet, comrade lieutenant," Kuyvishvev grumbled, rubbing his wrist. "What about you, Sergeant?"

"You got off lucky, you young buck. My left arm is definitely broken, comrade lieutenant, and my right leg might be in just as bad a shape."

"Nobody even pissed their pants?" Kalinin grinned a rare grin. "That must mean you're all seasoned veterans."

He held onto the metal bench with one hand and unbuckled his seat harness with another, flipping over and landing easily on his feet. He helped his men down, taking extra care with the wounded Kadashvili and Kuyvishev, just as he saw movement out of the corner of his eye.

Kalinin turned to look down the barrels of no less than ten rifles—Soviet AKMs, American M-16s, and even an Austrian Steyr AUG.

"Men," he said quietly. "We may indeed have stumbled upon the Helmaj a little bit earlier than we thought."

**To be continued...**

**A/N and Glossary:**

**IDF**: Israeli Defense Force; the ground-based army and combat forces.

**IAF**: Israeli Air Force. No explanation necessary.

**Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations**: The Vienna Convention, ratified by the United Nations and all member states in 1961, governs the establishment of what is more commonly known as diplomatic immunity on accredited diplomats. Basically, certain accredited and recognized members of a national embassy or consulate in another country are not subject to the laws of the host nation while they are on that nation's soil. However, given due cause, a nation can declare an accredited person "persona non grata" and basically force them out of the country. In other words, diplomatic immunity is guaranteed so long as the accredited diplomat isn't a spy.

Almost inevitably, most accredited diplomats below the assistant ambassador of most countries are usually spies. The trick is proving that, though.

**FIM-92A 'Stinger' Missile**: The Stinger was developed in the early 1970s to replace the aging Redeye soldier-portable surface-to-air missile system. The FIM-92A began production in 1978 and saw field deployment to US and NATO units in that year, but its historic use was in Afghanistan.

The CIA deployed almost 500 Stinger missiles to the _mudjehedeen_ guerillas fighting the Soviet occupation forces. No confirmation of dates has ever surfaced, but it can be assumed that CIA deployment did not begin en masse until the mid-1980s, according to some Soviet accounts and unconfirmed _mudjehedeen_ reports.

How they came to the Helmaj as early as 1981 is a mystery to which the United States government will not acknowledge. It's safe to assume that the CIA would never give such weapons to a group such as the Helmaj, who fought the Soviets and _mudjehedeen_ with equal fervor...


	10. The Supplication of a Dead Man's Hand

**A/N:** Sorry for taking so long on this... I lost my muse and my momentum due to that damn shoulder injury. 

Many props to Lakewood for his excellent beta work as usual. Any remaining complaints or errors are my own fault and should be directed to my own idiocy.

I am in the market for at least one, maybe two new beta readers. An attention to quality, detail, and mechanics are primary traits, and canon knowledge is a major plus. If you're interested, E-mail me at my address in my profile.

On with the show!

* * *

**_9: The Supplication of a Dead Man's Hand_**

* * *

**24,000 feet over the Sinai Peninsula**  
**September 9th, 1981**  
**9:30 AM**

The whipping of high winds kicked the MITHRIL agents in the face despite their protective gear. Combined with the backlash of the Hercules' propellers, the slowly opening cargo door sucked air from the cargo bay with the force of a small tornado. Were it not for the securely fastened carabiners that the agents hooked to notches in the bulkheads, they would be ripped out as well.

"We'll be over the drop zone in forty seconds!" the jumpmaster, also secured into place, shouted out once the cargo door had motored fully open. His voice was muffled by the oxygen mask he wore and the blustering, blowing windblast crashing through the big C-130 cargo hauler.

The MITHRIL agents were a little woozy, having had only five hours' sleep on the ground after an eighteen-hour flight to the American Air Force base on Diego Garcia island in the Indian Ocean, where—thanks to a codeword to the air traffic controller, a generous handful of cash to each of the ground crew members, and an isolated hangar—their Hercules had been refueled, refitted, and disguised in Israeli Air Force markings and equipment. Another twelve hours in the air in the noisy, barely-pressurized cargo bay of the C-130 were not exactly conducive to a relaxing trip, and their mission still had yet to begin.

"Yo, did I mention I hate this part?" Mark yelled over the din.

"For the past day and a half, not counting jet lag," Kenji shouted in reply. "Gef, are you sure he has to be conscious for the jump?"

"We didn't bring a spatula and plastic bags with us in the loadout," she joked. "This'll have to do."

"Thirty seconds!" the jumpmaster called.

"You ever do a HALO jump with the equipment before?" Kenji turned to Gef.

She shook her head. "Just with personnel, but never with a vehicle."

"Twenty seconds! Stand to position!"

The three operatives stepped to the joint of the cargo door, just sitting at the edge of the split between air and metal.

"If we get crushed by that big mofo', I just want the both of y'all to know that it was a blast, and Kenji, I ain't lettin' you out of that Fourex you owe me."

"I'll trade it in for those five hundred lira you borrowed from me on the Strokov assassination."

"That bastard had it coming! You tellin' me you're gonna make me pay for the can of Coke we spiked to off the fucker?"

"If you're going to make me pay for the beer, then you bet I am!"

"Ten seconds! Move to the edge!"

The operatives unlatched themselves from the carabiners, freeing their secure restraints. They were free to move around the C-130, but they made their way to the very edge of the cargo ramp.

"Five seconds!"

"See you when we get back!" Gef snapped off a quick wave to the jumpmaster.

A loud buzzer sounded on a signal from the cockpit, switching on a bright green light on the inside of the cargo bay.

"Clear to jump! Go!"

Kenji went first, taking two quick steps off of the cargo ramp and falling into the bright, cloudless sky.

The rush of wind drowned out his hearing despite the military-spec noise protectors. Not even heavily sound-buffered and reinforced ear protectors could drown out the sound of a human being swiftly accelerating under the power of gravity alone. As he plummeted towards the earth, picking up speed and blown around by high-altitude winds, the roaring of the sky sounded like a horde of chariots, forcing him out of their domain.

As he turned to look behind him, Kenji saw the C-130 slowly fading away, flying off and growing farther in the distance. Gef was a few yards behind him, and Mark was quickly catching up; he had tucked his arms and legs close to his body and shifted himself to point downwards, accelerating towards the other agents. In just a few seconds, the operatives had matched their positions and were spreading across a twenty-foot line.

The heads-up altimeter in Kenji's helmet spiraled downward rapidly as his oxygen mask struggled to keep up with his breathing. _Free fall is the best part,_ he thought, forcing himself to stop gritting his teeth in anticipation. _You have to relax. Prepare yourself. Loosen your limbs, but keep them close to your body. Down to eighteen thousand feet.  
_

* * *

The altimeter had spun down to eight thousand feet after what felt like only a minute of free-fall, and the agents spread their distance from each other by forty feet each. A quick spread of their arms and legs acted to brake their downward fall, and after enough time, they had slowed to just roughly a little more than a hundred and fifty miles per hour and roughly steady. 

Itclicked down even more, though, winding to five thousand feet... four thousand... three thousand... two thousand...

They pulled the ripcords on their parachutes at a precise moment, just when the altimeters ticked below 1,995 feet. The 'chutes deployed with CO2 charges, kicking out of the backpacks with a hard shove of compressed gas. The canopies rapidly expanded and billowed to their full swell, the nylon lines taking up the slack of the sudden deceleration.. Painted robins' egg blue on the underside and desert tan on the top, they were barely visible except for a very highly trained eye or a lucky lookout.

Kenji grabbed a hold of the canopy handles dangling above his head and rapidly pulled hard on the right handle, dumping air out of his parachute and entering into a lazy right turn. He oriented himself with Gef and Mark, who were a little late to pop their parachutes and gain control. When he saw the two canopies against the desert, he let out a sigh of relief; his altimeter had shown him at 780 feet. It was only a few seconds between a safe descent and far, far worse, given the speeds at which they had been falling.

Mark and Gef landed almost simultaneously; they flared their 'chutes at the last possible moment to dump the air out of the canopy and billow out the fabric. Their first action, after making sure that neither had any injuries or were blowing away in a sudden gust, was to gather and bury the parachutes. It wasn't long before Kenji landed and helped with their efforts, which was much appreciated; the hot desert sun was beating down on the agents and their folding-shovel labors.

"Okay, that's done," Mark wiped his brow as he tossed one last shovelful of sand onto the impromptu hiding spot. "What about the rest of it?"

Gef pulled on the black strap that ran across her chest, securing her field pack into place; another pull on another strap brought her MP5 submachine gun around to her front. A quick pull on the charging handle chambered the first round, and after checking the sights' alignment, she set the safety on the weapon and let it fall slack on the strap.

Mark and Kenji finished similar checks on their respective weapons: a Hydra grenade launcher and a scope-equipped G3 assault rifle. Everyone examined their field packs for loose or missing items.

Just as they finished, the droning sound of the C-130's propellers echoed over the desert again.

"There's the rest of the drop," Kenji called out, pointing east. The Hercules was barely a hundred feet over the ground and a mile off; it seemed to leap across the terrain as it dipped up and down to hug the ground.

Gef pulled the ring from a marker grenade and threw it as hard as she could towards a relatively level sand dune. In a few seconds, the grenade began to billow out voluminous clouds of blue smoke, and the transport plane made some minute adjustments in its heading and altitude.

Just as the transport zoomed overhead, its engines roaring with effort, a large tan object flew out of the cargo door, and its braking parachute immediately pulled out the large descent 'chute.As the tan nylon unfurled, the shape of a battered old Jeep, clearly marked with the IDF's blue Star of David logo, became visible. The low-altitude drop was a little bit hard, and the jeep landed a few inches into the sand, but other than that, it was intact. The MITHRIL agents buried the last parachute and checked the equipment as the C-130 banked northbound for the military airfield outside Tel Aviv.

"Looks like we lucked out," Gef observed, checking the Mark 19 automatic grenade launcher that was pintle-mounted on the jeep. "The IDF only has a handful of these in the test-bed pool for the new SpecOps troops."

"MITHRIL's got a truckload of American Express cards," Mark joked. "Kenji, ain't no way you're drivin' this one."

"Fine by me." Kenji tossed Mark the keys from the jeep's glovebox as Gef stepped into the rear of the jeep, charging the Mark 19. "So long as you don't get us killed, it should be clear sailing all the way to the Leapfrog crash site."

"So where to?" Mark started the engine and the jeep kicked to life; it seemed like it had seen quite some service judging by the wrenching sounds as it shifted into gear.

"Head north," Kenji checked their coordinates on a portable GPS receiver and compared them to a map of the area. "We're a few kilometers shy of the site."

"Any updates from HQ on the SATCOM?" Gef called over the roaring engine.

"We'll know when we get there, but I doubt anyone has any ideas as to what the devil happened to that leg."

Mark cast a quick glance up at the cloudless sky, shimmering from the heat rising off the desert sands. He could feel the granules and particles brushing his face from the rooster-tailed kickback of the jeep; they spiraled in the air from its jerky, swift movements.

_It's been hot down here forever,_ Mark thought, already feeling beads of sweat trickle on the dark brown skin of his furrowed brow. _Let's hope we can cool things down a little before it really boils over._

**Somewhere east of St. Helena, California  
That same time (11:30 PM local)**

The flight to L.A. had landed on time, and the short-hauler flight to Sacramento was delayed after a three-hour emergency repair. By the time he had landed and picked up his car, an inconspicuous Cutlass sedan, from the long-term parking lot, it was well into the California night.

Richard drove most of the way with his window down and his elbow lazily hanging out, the radio playing a nameless jazz song.

_The extra couple hundred bucks for the cassette player was worth it,_ he thought, tapping his fingers on the fiberglass body panel of the drivers' door. _I make this drive too damn much, and it's lonely without my Thelonius Monk. _

The rolling hills of the wine country were shadowed, black masses, occasionally broken by the lights of a house or vineyard. The cloudless night was punctuated by a waning crescent moon, bright enough to drown out nearby stars, but dark enough to make the high-beams necessary.

It wasn't long before the Cutlass took a left into a dirt driveway, marked only by a modestly carved wooden sign:

**Drifting Snow Vineyards  
St. Helena, California  
Fine Napa Valley Wines**

The dirt driveway led past rows upon rows of redwood-supported wine grape vines. He slowed down so the engine wouldn't drown out the crickets that were always chirping in the vineyards, a homey sound that he always held close.

_The chardonnay grapes should be ready to pick soon,_ he noted with a quick glance off to his left. _That is, if Paco and the crew managed to get the '77 merlot shipment out to the bottlers early. No miracles, but it'd be nice to have the room in the aging basement..._

He managed to fill his mind with the trivial points of the wine business until he drove the Cutlass up to the small white ranch house on the overlooking hill. It wasn't really a hill, more of a knoll, but the darkened windows provided sweeping views of the vineyards and valleys in the daytime.

The Cutlass reclaimed its space in the two-car garage, and Richard closed the door quietly as not to disturb the house. He didn't even bother turning on the lights as he hung his keys on a small rack. The jingling metal keys went on the "His" rack; the "Hers" rack already held the keys for a well-worn Honda sedan.

_Good,_ he thought with a smile. _She's home._

In the darkness of the house's master bedroom, he fumbled with properly hanging the gabardine wool pants and jacket of his suit on their hangars and simply brushed his teeth in his boxers and tank-top undershirt.

_I look like a wreck, don't I, guys?_ He smiled as he brushed his teeth with one hand, picking up a small, framed photo in another.

There was a rustle of movement from the master bedroom; even though he was careful not to make too much noise and to close the bathroom door before turning on the light, some stealth maneuvers simply couldn't be detected.

"Sorry if I woke you, Kiriko," Richard said apologetically as he rinsed the toothpaste out of his mouth. "The damn plane got held up."

"It's no trouble, Richie," a soft, sleepy voice replied as he felt a pair of slim, feminine arms wrap around his stomach, hugging him gently from behind. "I just missed you, that's all."

Kiriko Sonoma stepped to his side, her blue nightgown undulating over her body as she kissed her husband on his as-yet-unshaven cheek. She smiled at him as he yawned deeply, worn from a day's worth of travel and business, her almond eyes bright despite the late hour.

"How are things going around here?" he asked as he turned off the bathroom light, following his wife back to the bedroom.

"Oh, just the usual." She slipped back under the down comforter of their darkened bedroom, leaning against Richard's toned chest. "The boys got the shipment out yesterday in record time, the zinfandel needs another seven months in the oak and at least a year in the mahogany. Oh, I managed to increase the carrying capacity for the Boxer cannon prototype as well."

"Yesterday?" Richard shifted onto his side to face Kiriko. "I didn't think it'd be done until this afternoon."

"You always underestimate them," Kiriko teased, poking his chest, then tracing lazy circles on the nape of his neck with her finger. "Paco, Andres, and Esteban love working for us. They still can't get over the fact that I bring them lemonade in the afternoons."

"I think I might start to get jealous," Richard chuckled.

"Oh, don't worry. I have enough weapons in the sub-basement to make sure they play nice."

"You really managed to raise the Boxer cannon's mag capacity?"

"Mmm." She nodded, her shoulder-length black hair tickling Richard's chest. "Twenty rounds at the current size. It was just a matter of standardizing a stagger pattern for the cartridges, like a handgun, while maintaining the velocity shaping of the shells themselves."

Richard shook his head. "You never stop thinking, do you?" He stroked her hair gently, kissing her forehead deftly.

He could feel her cheeks form a smile on the skin of his undershirt. "I don't mind doing this if it's for you, sweetie. I know you wouldn't do anything undue with them."

"I just wish you didn't have to, that's all." He sighed, running a hand through his well-groomed dark hair. "You've been doing this all your life... I just wish that we didn't have to worry about this, that we could settle down with our little old winery. Maybe we could clear the western fields, plant some wild grass, get some cows in... we could make our own cheeses, start another business..."

"Come on, Richie." Kiriko lifted herself up on an elbow, the curves of her body barely clinging to the satiny nightgown, her silhouette ethereally lit by the glow of the crescent moon through the window. "You and I both know that you would never be happy with that. Besides, it's not like we don't have enough money, with more coming in every day."

Richard sat up, leaning against the headboard of the old mission bed. "It seems so futile sometimes, that's all. That government mule only wanted to grab the plans and go. He knew what they were for, he knew what they could do, and he knew how they came into existence. He just wanted to slap them onto the Patton and send it off to war."

An awkward silence hung between the couple for a moment as Kiriko reached over to embrace her husband. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders in response, squeezing her back gently.

"It really won't ever end," he ventured. "It never ended, and there's not a damn thing they'll ever do to stop it."

"You knew that when you first met me, Richard," Kiriko whispered, almost steely with conviction and determination.

"Yeah..." Richard nodded, now holding Kiriko in both his arms. "So we'll probably end up having to go ahead and take one last business trip."

Kiriko nodded. "I figured. I sent the briefcase out last week to the drop box in Beijing. The shipping container left San Diego yesterday."

Richard touched his wife's chin, pulling her close to deliver a kiss.

"I love you, Richard," she squeezed his hand to her cheek. "Through all of this, I always have and I always will."

She didn't feel the tear that rolled down his cheek. She didn't see the other tears that welled up in his eyes, just as easily as he didn't see the ones welling in hers.

"I love you too, Kiriko."

"We'll be back in the swing of things soon enough," she whispered to him, almost like a promise. "I know you too well. Everything's ready and moving into position. We'll put an end to the Scimitar and the Patton before MITHRIL can even field them. I'm sure our friends will help see to that."

**To be continued...**


	11. In Death's Other Kingdom

**A/N**: Sorry again for the delay... it took me a while to get my thoughts organized after the last chapter and on paper. It's been busy with work and The Real World, too... I got hired on full-time, and that came with a big, big raise. I've been trying to figure out what to do with it, whether to move out or pay down bills while still living at home. Since I hate living with my parents (They're OK people, but I don't have the independence I really want) I've been really obsessed about house-hunting, furnishing, etc. I think I'll probably take it all easy, though. I just finished orientation and all the benefits/stock plan/retirement plan stuff still has my head spinning. OO 

FMP: The Second Raid is starting soon in Japan! It looks like it's going to continue where the original series left off, picking up with the Owaru Day by Day novels. Again, I urge everyone to go check these novels out. They're greatness.

Props as always to my wonderful beta reader, Lakewood. I'm still looking for other beta-ers! If anyone's interested, just shoot me an E-mail.

As I post this, I just saw that this fic has reached 994 hits, making it the most-read thing I've ever written. I'd like to say thanks to you for making it this far! I'm really starting to believe I'm good at this, enough to the point that I'm going to motivate myself to write even more and even better, hopefully by taking a writing workshop over the summer.

'course, my current passion is getting my motorcycle license and getting a fixer-upper bike... I'd love to spend the summer on the back of a Hayabusa, but maybe a nice little café racer would do for now.

Okay, enough babble. To keep pace with my current life, check out my website link in my profile. It goes to my Livejournal, which is friends-able.

On with the show!

* * *

_**10: In Death's Other Kingdom**_

* * *

**The Sinai**  
**Near the 31st Parallel  
****10:30 AM**

The MITHRIL-appropriated jeep bounded over another sand dune, jarring its occupants as it crashed on a hardy, military-spec suspension. The tires bit into the loose sand, and the jeep tilted precariously towards the left.

"Mark, you're never driving again!" Gef yelled, grabbing desperately onto the handles of the pintle-mounted grenade launcher.

"This is why I'm glad the Ferrari only has two seats," Kenji shouted back over the roaring din of the engine and wrenching squeaks from the gearbox. "Only have two casualties."

"Enough outta the peanut gallery!" Mark responded as the jeep landed on all four wheels and heeled hard to the right as he struggled to stabilize it. "We don't know if the Egyptians or Israelis are gonna send in more tanks. It's been almost a full day since the leg disappeared, so we have to get our asses into gear!"

"General Patton speaks," Kenji shot to Gef.

"Aw, hell, we may already be too late! Tank at eleven o'clock!"

Mark slammed hard on the brakes as the jeep bounded over a dune; it skidded almost forty yards in the sand before it came to a full stop.

"It's a Magach-6 heading westbound," Gef reported after she managed to scan the horizon with her binoculars. "There's an M113 close to its right flank, probably a command track. It's SOP for a tank platoon. They're probably reinforcing out of the forward base at Bar Abad."

Kenji let out a low whistle. "I'm glad the general wanted you with us, Gef. Nothing beats someone who knows the area."

"Well, I'm glad you want me along too, Ken-chan," Gef teased, patting him on the shoulder and resorting to Japanese colloquialisms. She managed to get a blush out of Kenji from that one.

"I hate to break it up, kids, but we need to move onward," Mark interjected. "Gef, what's the order of battle for both sides?"

"Let's see..." Gef reached into her field pack and withdrew a folded, laminated sheet of paper. "This came off the MARSUPIAL at Fort Meade, sourced to a CIA operative in the Cairo embassy and a transmission from the Israeli Ministry of Defense to the Prime Minister. The Egyptians have mounted the full strength of their 12th Mechanized Infantry Division and are moving it to the front. The 141st Armored Regiment has been in the field since the initial photos were intercepted from Woomera, and it was their 1st Battalion of the 5th Brigade that fought it out with the Israelis. The 98th, 45th, and 14th Regiments are all about three days' march back, but when they're in the field, it's bad. Approximately three hundred tanks, four hundred APCs, three hundred and fifty towed and mobile artillery pieces, and ten thousand troops."

Mark and Kenji looked uneasily at each other.

"It gets better, boys." Gef flipped the page. "The Israelis have their 10th Armored Division waiting to counter it. Less numbers overall, next to no artillery support, so their field troops are going to get hammered until the IAF can commit themselves to the operation. Of course, the air bases around Tel Aviv and Bar Emet have been operating around the clock, and the Americans just dispatched eight C-5s out of Dover. They're going to ferry in some extra weapons for them. Maverick missiles, some laser-guided bombs, extra Apache helicopters, and other wonderful things."

"Wonderful." Mark drummed on the steering wheel as he watched the Israeli armored vehicles move westward. "How long do we have before this heats up, Gef?"

"The intercepts and photos indicate that both sides are back to their respective sides of the line," Gef paged through a few more sheets. "The Israelis have held back in their advances, and the Egyptians have had plenty of opportunities to push forward and counterattack. There's been radio traffic back and forth on both sides. It's anyone's guess."

"Let's not set them off," Kenji surmised. "We're in the same grid coordinate as the leg site, so it shouldn't be that far. Let's wait for this patrol to pass and keep a low profile as we move onward. That means no more stunt driving, Mark," Kenji finished with a sideways glare.

"Hey, the stealthy approach is a different game," Mark said with a laid-back smile as he shifted the jeep back into gear. He turned and moved the jeep off the dune skillfully, advancing behind a larger sand dune that lay between them and the tanks.

It took another three hours of advancing to a covering dune, waiting and scouting, advancing, waiting and scouting before they approached the first wreckage of an Egyptian T-62.

"In one piece," Mark boasted, patting himself on the back facetiously. "To think that we almost landed on one of the bastards, too."

Gef shook her head. "I'm glad they were able to get a jeep with a Star of David on it. That troop of Magachs was way too close for comfort."

The MITHRIL agents disembarked from the jeep as they approached the crater in question. Surely enough, there was no leg jutting out of it, just a hole in the sand; the shocks of nearby explosions had mixed with the high winds and uncovered some of the scorched remnants of the leg.

"There's still some fragments," Kenji reported, digging a handful of sand and sifting out the particulate Sinai desert sands. He held up a charred piece of metal, about an inch by an inch. Between the streaks of black burn marks, the surface of the metal was a dulled white.

"It's pretty light, even for the size." Mark took a piece from Kenji, tossing it between his hands, flipping it like a coin. "It doesn't feel like metal either."

Gef pulled her field gloves off and experimentally flicked it with her fingernail. It gave off a hollow _tock_ sound, as if it was hollow.

"Triple-reinforced dry carbon fiber or hard fiberglass," she mused to herself in whispered Hebrew. "I _knew_ something of that size would be too heavy to move if it was reinforced steel."

"Something wrong, Gef?" Kenji asked as he dug through the sand for more fragments.

Gef looked up and shook her head, her auburn ponytail brushing her neck, already sweating from the sun overhead. "No, I'm just wondering what the hell this stuff is. It doesn't feel like any metal I've ever seen."

"Looks like whoever took the leg cleaned the place up pretty thoroughly," Mark remarked, holding up a handful of odd-looking sand. "Take a gander at this stuff."

Kenji caught the odd-shaped bundle of sand that Mark handed to him, half-expecting it to explode in a sandy cloud. He was surprised to find out that it was a rather heavy lump of fused sand clusters and metal.

"This is..." He held it up to the sunlight, peering through it. "This is glass. Something was burning, and it melted the sand and metal together."

Gef took a closer look. "Yeah... maybe it came under fire. Artillery or tank rounds, probably. A grenade couldn't generate a big enough explosion to cause this."

"Aha!" Mark exclaimed, spotting some dull objects in the sand a few hundred yards off. "Shell casings, guys! Big ones!"

The agents walked over the dunes to make their way over to the empty shell casings. Sure enough, there were several.

That was the problem.

"Son of a bitch..." Mark and Kenji said simultaneously.

Five spent shell casings lay in the desert, spread out by about forty feet. Three bore what was obviously Hebrew letters, and the other two had Arabic writing on them.

"Gef, any thoughts?" Kenji lifted two of the heavy, empty metal shells, holding them up at eye level.

"Those are 115mm smoothbore rounds for a T-62," Gef read off of the supply origin and serial numbers from the Arabic-written shell. "Those are 105mm rounds for a Magach-6."

"So you're tryin' to tell me that an Egyptian and an Israeli tank got this close to each other?" Mark asked skeptically.

Gef shook her head. "These shells were at a similar depth in the sand. It's like they were fired at roughly the same approximate time. They're both pointing northwards at the Leapfrog leg site, too..."

Kenji shielded his eyes from the sun and looked towards the leg. "They were fighting side-by-side..." he said to nobody else in particular. "Fighting who?"

Mark and Kenji's eyes met.

"There has to be another one," Mark said as if responding to another unspoken question.

"He said that _they_ had to be stopped..." Kenji trailed off, sharing a worried glance with Mark, when the roar of heavy diesel engines suddenly came into audible range...

"Tanks inbound, close on the left flank!" Gef called out, pulling Kenji down by the collar of his uniform. She reached out for Mark as an afterthought, but he was already on the ground, his Hydra in front and safety off. They made a mad dash back to their jeep, tearing away from the wreck. Mark spun the jeep around behind a dune after a harrowing, fast dash away from the wrecked leg.

There were five of them, not two hundred yards to their north. Three bore the red, white and black bars of the Egyptian flag, and two were the same Israeli tanks that had passed by earlier.

"Oh, shit..." Gef whispered, biting her lip, her eyes wide in a visceral, animal fear all too familiar to her. "Those Magachs don't stand a chance..."

"They don't if they were being fired upon," Kenji remarked, crawling up to peek above the lip of the sand dune. "They're dismounting from their tanks..."

Sure enough, the Egyptian T-62s had stopped moving about seventy-five yards from the Israelis, their engines whining on a high idle. From his low profile, Kenji could see the crewmen of the Egyptian tanks unlatch the circular turret hatches and emerge from the armored vehicles. He was too far off to hear anything, but there were faint sounds of greeting shouts on the wind.

"You're not going to believe this..." Kenji reached down with his right hand. "Gef, hand me your binoculars."

"What's going on?" Gef handed up the binoculars, more worry spreading across her face. She tightened her grip on her MP5, toy-like in comparison to the tanks' fearsome suite of heavy-caliber guns.

"One of the Egyptians just shook hands with an Israeli officer," Kenji reported, peering through the binoculars.

It was the next best thing to being right there, the Egyptian tanker's broad smile bright against his swarthy Arabic complexion. The Israeli officer, a full colonel of tanks according to a quick sidelong view of his rank patches, threw an arm around the Egyptian's shoulder. The two men laughed, the joke lost on Kenji.

"This is unbelievable," Mark shook his head, crawling up beside Kenji.

"I don't believe it for a second," Gef snapped angrily. "Let me see that."

Before he could hand them over, Gef had rushed up besides Kenji, violently snatching the binoculars from his hands. She propped herself in a half-kneeling pose, as if she was about to leap up and dash towards the tanks. As she put the binoculars up to her eyes, the clench in her jaw was obvious.

"Gef, get down!" Kenji yanked her down to the ground. The roar of the tanks' engines fired up again, rumbling at a low idle.

"They're probably on the move to the Leapfrog," Gef growled. "I don't suppose we've got any anti-tank weapons?"

Kenji held up two pineapple-shaped fragmentation grenades. "This is as heavy as it gets. Mark's Hydra can't penetrate tank armor."

The diesel engines kicked up in pitch, then roared into gear. Kenji risked a peek over the lip of the dune, and sure enough, the Egyptian T-62s had started moving towards the leg. The Magachs had formed up on the left and right, their turrets trained out and gunners in the hatches, searching for targets.

"So much for our investigation," Mark grumbled, watching the tanks move to the leg and being careful to stay low. His 'fro was contained under a floppy, tan "boonie" hat, and he had long since been quick to apply camouflage paint upon hitting the ground. "They're right at the leg, probably gonna poke around."

"We need something, _anything_. Gotta get some evidence somehow," Kenji surmised as the tanks encircled the leg, taking up guard positions. The engines throttled back down to idle; a few shouted words of Hebrew between the Israelis interspersed themselves with the crackle of tactical radios.

"They're taking up a circular formation around the wreck," Kenji reported. "One tank is breaking off eastbound, another west. Looks like a patrol."

"Cover the jeep, quick!" Gef ordered, breaking out the camouflage netting from the back of their appropriated spec-ops jeep. A few quick tucks had the entire small vehicle covered in the obtuse netting, a blended tan shape that faded into the sand.

The MITHRIL troops kept an eye on the patrolling tanks as the late afternoon sun started to sink into the sand in the distance.

"They've only got first-gen starlight scopes on those Magachs." Gef set down Kenji's rifle; its high-power scope served as an impromptu spotting and ranging scope. "We'll be fine into the night so long as we don't move around too much."

"They're not leaving, that's for sure." Kenji clambered down from the dune, squinting his eyes from looking towards the sunset. "I saw them setting up tents and a campfire."

"So we wait?"

"We report in," Mark chimed in. "It's coming up on 1845 hours."

Kenji rummaged in the back of the camouflage-covered jeep for their portable satellite communications terminal, a twenty-pound device that resembled a computer keyboard, five-inch thermal printer, and satellite dish sewn together by a drunken surgeon. He plugged a pair of headphones into a jack and aligned the dish along an east-west line.

"Got it." Kenji nodded when he heard the warbling carrier tone of Galadriel, MITHRIL's Eastern hemisphere communications satellite. "Compiling the message now."

TO: CINCMITHPAC  
FM: SIGNET-4

RE: SIGNET RING FLDOPS

SIGNET-4 REPORTS DROP SUCCESS.

UPON ARRIVAL AT TARGET AREA, EVADED DETECTION BY EGYPTIAN/ISRAELI ARMOR

ARMOR IS WORKING IN CONJUNCTION. SIGNS POINT TO CONFLICT AGAINST UNKNOWN ENEMY, NOT REPEAT NOT BTWN EGY/ISR FORCES.

EGY/ISR DETACHMENT IS GUARDING TARGET AREA AND FURTHER INVEST. NOT REPEAT NOT POSSIBLE AT THIS TIME.

SIGNET-4 REQUESTS FURTHER OPORDERS.

-KM SENDS

Kenji keyed the red XMIT button, and after a moment, the thermal printer spat out a receipt with a date/time stamp and encryption group preamble. It only took twenty seconds for a return signal to bounce off the satellite and print out on the SATCOM terminal.

TO: SIGNET-4  
FM: CINCMITHPAC

CC: CINCMITHCENT, CINCMITHEUR, CINCMITHLANT

(CNFRMD EUR/LANT FRM ARWEN 174548Z)

SIGNET-4 IS ORDERED TO REMAIN IN POSITION AND REPORT IN EVERY EVEN HOUR ON ALL ACTIVITY AT SITE.

CONTINUE EVADING CONTACT. DO NOT RPT DO NOT ENGAGE UNLESS FIRED UPON.

REINFORCEMENTS WILL BE DISPATCHED AT DISCRETION OF MITHCENT, GNL. SHABRA CIC.

KEEP IN CONTACT.

-AS SENDS

"Continue evading contact, remain in position," Mark scoffed. "Not like we can do much else until they get the hell outta here."

"Break out the rations?" Gef asked.

"Yeah, we should eat. I don't suppose we could build a fire to warm 'em up?"

"You suppose correct, Mark. Heating tabs or nothing."

"Aw, man, I-"

Mark's protest was cut short by a shout of alarm from the wreck site.

"Huh?" Kenji's ears perked up. "Anyone else hear that?"

The tanks' engines kicked into gear, drowning out the shouts in Hebrew and Arabic. As one unit, all the tanks switched on their powerful headlights. The desert, tinged with a red horizon from the twilight sun, was suddenly lit up. The wreck site was surrounded by a multimillion-candlepower corona as the tanks switched on their searchlightsfanned out and changed position, turning to an eastern axis.

"Smoke on the horizon, two o'clock!" Kenji called out, training out his infrared scope. "I see a tank wreck burning!"

"Yeah, I got it too," Mark interjected. "Can't see what got it. I'll check around the horizon now..."

Gef dashed back to the jeep, throwing off the camo netting and arming the Mark-19. "Let's get ready to move, boys," she yelled over the resounding whine of the tanks' diesels. "We gotta jet before whatever it is gets close."

"Something's moving out there!" Kenji yelled back. "I've got a fast-moving IR target, don't know how far out, moving from two to one o'clock!"

"Shit, where is it, Kenji!" Mark had to scream over a Magach-6 tank that passed them not thirty yards away. The agents froze in place as it moved onwards, its turret pointing away from them. The high-performance 750hp diesel screamed a single-note voice, like a rearing horse, as it turned at its highest power setting, catapulting the tank over the sands at a breakneck speed for such a huge vehicle.

"Close! Looks like just a couple of kilometers, and it's fast!"

Kenji saw it clearly, a bright blur in his IR scope. It glowed white, signifying a high temperature, but it was muddled, as if something was blocking it, jamming the signal. The blur moved quickly, as if it was alternating between running and jumping.

KATHOOM! 

The nearby Magach-6 fired off a round, the shell casing ejecting out the left side of its 105mm smoothbore cannon. Mark and Kenji quickly dropped their IR scopes and clapped their hands over their ears to drown out the noise, but all too late; it felt like a solid compression wave had blown into their eardrums.

"Psycho fuckin' Heebs!" Mark shouted. "Everyone okay?"

Kenji pulled his hands from his ears and checked them. "I've bled worse at rock concerts. This ringing isn't going away, though."

"Get in and let's get out of here!" Gef shouted. "Hurry up!"

"No, wait!" Kenji grabbed his IR scope and scanned his surroundings again. "That thing is still out there!"

"We _can't_ stand up to something that can take out a fucking _tank_, Kenji!" Gef screamed at him. "Get in, _now_!"

"Shit!" Kenji swore, jumping into the passenger seat. "Mark, come on!"

"Be right there!" Mark grabbed his IR scope and trained it back out. "I see the motherfucker, too! Damn, what the hell IS that thing?"

"MARK!"

"Shit!" Mark ran to the jeep, starting the engine and jamming the clutch and shifter straight into first. The engine roared with power, suddenly kicking off the sand and throwing the MITHRIL agents back into the seats.

Just as they cleared the dune, an explosion rocked the Magach-6 not a few feet under them; the jeep was blown off-course in mid-air. It crashed down on its right side, two tires punctured from fragments and a transmission line lacerated, spewing dark-red fluid. The last thing Kenji saw before hitting his head and suddenly losing consciousness was an oblong, gigantic tan-painted shadow, with two glowing blue orbs at its apex and a red star emblazoned on its side.

**To be continued...**

**Glossary**

**Dry carbon fiber/fiberglass:** Carbon fiber is a very strong, highly expensive material. It is formed by interlacing reinforced carbon filament with plastic and bonding it together in a weaved pattern. Examples can be seen in automotive applications; quite often, tuner cars (Think 2Fast 2Furious) can have black parts which are actually carbon fiber. In most cases, carbon fiber can take the place of heavier fiberglass as a structural component, but higher-quality CF applications can match or exceed steel.

In a single-layer configuration, carbon fiber is not applicable as an armor or reinforcement, but at cutting-edge technology for the early '80s, simply reinforcing with multiple layers would not necessarily create a stronger armor. It would have to be refined, created, and built with a process that would greatly surpass science and technology at the time.

**Israeli armored vehicles:** The Magach-6 is basically a retrofitted export version of the American M60 Patton tank. Phased out in the mid-80s for the M1 Abrams, the M60 had seen service in Europe, and in some cases, Vietnam, before being semi-retired and set for export. In terms of performance, it is slightly inferior to the then-modern Soviet-bloc T-72 tank, but its armor, weapons systems, and crew were almost universally superior to their Soviet counterparts. Israeli Defense Force armor formations are still based on the Magach-6 and –7 variant, although domestic military industrial development is providing an alternative to the expensive-to-import Abrams.


	12. Prayers to Broken Stone

**A/N:** I guess one update a month is okay... right? Sweatdrops I kinda got bogged down for lack of inspiration and busy stuff. In terms of Real Life, my full-time hiring didn't yield as much as I would have liked (They tax single working people really, really hard) and I've been working out details in Real Life. Work has had a LOT of drama recently, but I'm covering my ass well enough. I like getting paid to have free time to write fanfic. XD

Thanks go out to Lakewood for his always-fantastic beta work! Wild Goose 01 is now on my beta team, as is miz-lou and Anysia. What turned into my own little back-pat fanfic now has evolved into an organized and coordinated effort... talk about networking.

I just started watching Gundam Seed and am totally loving it so far. I'm heading down to my local Comic Book Guy after work today to pick up a model kit, even. I just gotthe Gundam Wing Complete Operations box set, too.I swore I'd never be that big of a mecha otaku, but look what happens. ;-;

I've branched out into Azumanga Daioh and School Rumble! If you like either, check out my profile pages for the stories. I hope you'll enjoy them!

On with the show!

* * *

_**11: Prayers to Broken Stone**

* * *

**MV **__Alhambra Real  
_That same time 

The crew of the _Alhambra Real_, a Spanish-flag fast container vessel, was used to mixed cargoes. Not yet a day's sail out of the Port of San Diego, they had taken on a load for delivery to three separate ports of call. A load of appliances was to be offloaded at Jakarta, and they had to drop off bananas in Cape Town before arriving at their home port, Cadiz, with several metric tons of Carolina rice.

It was a complete surprise, however, when they received a call, twelve hours out of port, to expect another container to be dropped off while under way.

"This is utter madness," the cargo ship's executive officer, a tan-skinned Basque, grumbled in articulate Spanish to his boatswain's mate. The XO and the bosun were two complete opposites; the former a tall, slim man with a pencil-thin moustache, the latter a stout, rotund, swarthy Castillian with the trademark regional lisp of Castille to his words. He was the man the captain and XO depended upon, though. As far back as Da Gama and Columbus, it was the bosun who yelled, screamed, whipped, and kicked the enlisted men into line.

"The boys're responding well enough," the bosun replied. "We've never taken on an airborne cargo before."

"But to clear out the loading cranes?" The XO stepped to the broad picture windows of the forward bridge. Amidships, a gang of sailors were manhandling a topside cargo container out of the way. It was part of the Cadiz rice shipment, and the new cargo would have to have priority. "We'll need those at dockside in Jakarta."

"Trust me, sir, we won't have anyone jump ship in Indonesia. There ain't nearly enough women to keep their interest." The bosun let out a vulgar chuckle, well-acquainted with the hospitality of a Muslim country. He'd kept a flask handy for liberty visits there during his days with the Navy. "Ever see one of these beasts in action, sir?"

The XO shook his head. "I've only seen them from time to time, but I thought they were all out of service since Vietnam."

"Doesn't mean a private company or citizen can't use 'em, sir."

"True enough, mister."

"Rear lookout here!" a young voice reported over walkie-talkie, crackling through the bridge speakers. "I have a helicopter approaching us from the east-southeast!"

"Signal XCQ," the XO replied over his radio.

"Signaling XCQ," the enlisted man replied, readying his Morse signal lamp.

"All hands, stand ready to receive helicopter cargo!" the bosun shouted over his walkie-talkie, tuned in to the deckhands. "Sir, I'm going deckside to supervise the loading if you need me."

"Go right ahead," the XO said with a nod. He didn't particularly dislike the bosun, but Basques never particularly had love for their Castillian neighbors either. After all, many a royal Spanish court had viciously suppressed the Basque statehood movement. The XO wasn't an ETA member, but his blood was Basque before it was ever Spanish...

The CH-54 Skycrane helicopter was the most ungainly, un-airworthy-looking helicopter the bosun had ever seen. It had a long, thin cargo section that held up a standard-sized sea cargo box, and its fixed landing gear straddled the sides of the box as if to hold it in place from the sides. Its cockpit was little more than a bulge attached to the rotor, as if slapped on in afterthought. It made plenty of noise and downdraft, though, and it took twenty enlisted crewmembers suffering under the bosun's bullhorn to direct the chopper crew in place.

The red-painted chopper bore commercial markings, with "Bayshore Air Cargo" emblazoned on the cockpit in small letters. The bosun tried to match eyes with the pilot, but he was busy following the hand motions of the cargomaster. Slowly, the chopper edged into position, maintaining a hover in the roiled air over the cargo deck.

"In position!" a call came over the walkie-talkie.

"Tell that thing to release the cargo and get out of here!" the bosun barked to the cargomaster. The cargomaster nodded, crossed his arms in an X over his head, and nodded.

There was a series of four _KACHUNK_ noises as the secure cargo clamps were disengaged from the Skycrane. The helicopter increased lift, hovering away from the box, before moving back eastward towards San Diego.

The bosun couldn't resist clambering up the cargo ladders to take a look. As his gang of sailors cleated down the cargo, he examined the paperwork that had been sent via telex just an hour before.

"'Chinaware and personal effects under diplomatic control; to be transferred only to Mr. Rafiq Akbar in Karachi, dock 14-A1, no later than September 16th,'" he read off the manifest. "Who ships a cargo container full of fucking plates to Pakistan?"

The bosun screamed at his men, hurrying them onward.

The only problem was that the closest thing to chinaware in the container was a single bottle of wine. It was the last that had come out of the reserve stocks of a Cabernet that had been slowly maturing, the depth of its oak-barrel tannin growing headier since the late 1970s.

Richard Sonoma didn't give out his first-year Cabernet lightly.

The seas were calm enough that the cargo didn't shift, which was fortunate for the _Alhambra Real_ and its crew. The ship was not licensed to ferry arms, and the 57mm Boxer rounds would certainly raise the eyes of any nation's coastal patrol who wanted to inspect her.

**Somewhere in northeast Afghanistan  
That same time**

"At least they're nice about it," Malenko quipped as he dangled upside down, squinting from the sun that had only halfway finished setting.

Kalinin didn't share the humor, and despite Malenko's chuckles between the jostling of his injured leg and arm, the mood of the men was harshly subdued. Their wrists had been lashed together with splintery hemp rope, and each of their ankles were tied to a near-petrified stick. Those, in turn, had been hefted onto the backs of two mules, carrying the captured Soviet soldiers as if they were heavy cuts of meat.

Their captors had been going back and forth in rapid-fire Kalama, and Kuyvishev's wrist, badly sprained from the Hind crash, was getting the brunt of as many bounces from the mules as Kadashvili's leg was getting the brunt of dangling from the ankle.

"It's been twelve hours since sunrise," Kalinin noted as they passed a withered, wind-blasted rock formation, reading off of its shadow. "If we've been traveling eastwards, then-"

"Utvalat hast!" one of their captors, a scraggly-bearded man with almost Asian eyes and tufts of dark blonde hair barked at them. "Not to talking!" he followed up in halting Russian.

_Then we're being taken into Helmaj territory,_ he read in Danilenko's worried eyes.

There was a bustle of noise as the horsemen pulled on the reins of their mounts and brought the impromptu convoy to a halt. Three Helmaj started cutting through the ropes holding their ankles to the logs with long, angry-looking military knives, and the soldiers fell to the ground in a huff.

"Up!" one yelled in accented Russian, pulling his hands in an upward motion. "Up now!"

The other Helmaj trained their rifles on the Soviets as they came to their feet. Even though he didn't show it, Kalinin could see the winces in Kadashivili's eyes as he walked on his sprained ankle. Danilenko shot a glance to Kalinin, and the lieutenant nodded as the rifles were prodded into their backs, forcing them forward.

"Just go along with them," Kalinin mumbled to Kadashvili. The sergeant nodded, then proceeded to fake a stumble, passing the information on by another mumble to the two privates.

It wasn't long before the party came to a ridgeline of cliffs, with a jagged old path leading down into a wide valley. Although there was little natural light left, a series of lights from torches and flashlights sparkled in the darkness.

"Kajavin Helmaji," a guard announced with a chuckle, prodding his AK into Kalinin's back.

Kalinin didn't answer; rather, he pressed onward as the men surrendered their horses to a teenage boy. He led them over to a makeshift corral, clustered around an oasis near the ridgeline path.

"Iqbal!" a shout echoed up from midway down the path. "Vitraji talak?"

"Ha!" one of their captors shouted back. "Vitraji tal!"

"Come with me," a heavily accented voice called out in Russian. "You are prisoners."

"Kalinin, Sergei Andreivich," Kalinin replied. "024-312-312, Second Lieutenant."

"Kadashvili, Leonid Ivanovich," Sergeant Kadashvili replied in kind. "I don't think they're worried about the Geneva Convention, comrade lieutenant," he interjected.

"We really do not," their captor said, emerging from behind a bend in the path. A tall, middle-aged man wearing a tunic-like garment over bloodied Soviet camouflage appeared before them, carrying a torch. "You need not worry, though."

Kalinin met the man's eyes, reflecting a grayish hazel color in the flickering torchlight. He stared right back at the Russian; Kalinin's handsome Slavic face yielded nothing.

"I am Majid," he said after a moment, turning his back. "I am the leader of these men for now. Follow me, obey my orders, and you will not be mistreated."

"Comrade Lieutenant..." Danilenko interjected, his voice tinged with worry.

"I don't like it either, comrade Danilenko," Kalinin cut him off. "We have no choice. We go."

The path led down a series of rocky switchbacks, at some points no wider than would be passable for a mountain goat. It took a half-hour's travel before they reached the valley floor, spreading out for several kilometers and liberally blanketed with tents, campfires, and racks of weapons, ammunition, and sundry cargo and fuel containers.

"This is the outlying region of our ancestral homeland," Majid spoke up, stopping outside of a tent covered in scrap metal, banded together with harsh lashes of pure cowhide leather. "The homeland of the Helmaj. Wait in here."Majid pointed his torch at the tent. "Iqbal and Gregor will guard you."

The man with the blond hair, obviously Gregor from his European appearance, and Iqbal, who appeared seemingly out of nowhere from the raiding party that had bright them back, stepped forward and hustled the Soviets into the tent, throwing the hard canvas cover closed and throwing the interior into darkness.

"Lieutenant, we have to get out of here _now_," Kadashvili hissed beneath a whisper. "If they're bluffing at being the Helmaj, they're skilled enough to be a front for the _mudjehedeen_. If they're the Helmaj after all..." Kadashvili left his unfinished sentence in the air, hanging like the smoke from too many cigars at a poker game.

"With what, comrade Sergeant?" Kalinin replied. "Your sprained leg? Kadashivili's ankle? Our broken equipment and lack of support?"

The tent flap came open and one of the guards, Iqbal, judging by the olive skin that was visible in the flash of outside light, dropped an already-lit gas lantern into the tent, followed by a basket of stale flatbread and thinly sliced meat.

"I don't suppose they ever fed us doner kebab at the canteen?" Kalinin remarked, sniffing at the food. "Give me fifteen minutes to make sure it isn't poisoned."

The privates availed themselves of water from their canteens, still attached to their equipment harnesses, as Kalinin waited for any obvious natural poisons mixed into the food. Seeing none, all the soldiers dove into the ground sliced lamb with gusto.

**MITHPAC Headquarters  
Two hours later (5:45 AM local time)**

"They still haven't reported in?"

General Sachar, already bleary-eyed from being on constant standby, trod in from the officers' mess, trailed by the strong scent of MITHRIL coffee. He felt like his bloodstream had turned brown from drinking so much of it over the last thirty-six hours, but the run-up and execution of SIGNET RING and deploying agents to the Sinai had required his near-constant attention.

A fresh-faced communications officer looked up at the general and shook his head. "Their last reporting time was at 1845 local, 0145 our time, sir. I was on after just a few hours' watch,and nothing came through. Repeated attempts to reach them through Galadriel and even through a sideband linkup over one of MITHLANT's relay birds, Gimli, via Arwen didn't make a connection to their SATCOM."

Sachar took a long pull of his coffee. "Keep trying," he muttered, patting the lieutenant on the shoulder. "No, wait – give me a line to MITHCENT. I need to speak to General Shabra ASAP."

The lieutenant punched several buttons on his keypad, and a yellow light blinked under a telephone handset on his console. "Connection established, sir," the lieutenant affirmed as he handed over the handset.

"This is Lieutenant-General Raikov," a Hebrew-accented voice responded.

"Ari, this is Andy Sachar down at MITHPAC. Is Hebron out of the office?"

"He's on an inspection tour of the Amman base, sir. I'm the adjutant on deck for now."

Sachar sighed. "Okay, Ari, listen up and listen good. Have you been briefed on SIGNET CARVER?"

"You mean the executive backup on SIGNET RING? I've seen the documents, sir."

"SIGNET ICON has failed to report in. Stand SIGNET CARVER to yellow alert. I'll leave the deployments out of Goa, Muscat, and Dubai to you, but I need to speak to General Shabra personally for the rest of the deployment."

There was a brief, heavy silence on the line. "Are you serious, sir? I mean... SIGNET CARVER would mean—"

"I'm aware of what it means, Lieutenant-General Raikov," Sachar almost growled. He had to start pulling some rank. "As operational commander of SIGNET RING, I am ordering the commencement of SIGNET CARVER as per the authority given to me by Command. Acknowledge the order."

"Understood," Raikov replied, clearly nervous despite the attentive tone to his voice. "I will order Goa, Muscat, and Dubai to begin air operations over the Sinai. Jeddah will assume alert status for airborne deployments under MITHCENT responsibility and Colombo will stand to for air superiority and close air support."

"Are your PRT and SRT otherwise engaged at this time?" Sachar had to cover his ear as a shrill alarm started to sound through the MITHPAC command center, accompanied by the flashes of a rotating yellow light. Raikov had already triggered the yellow alert notification system, firing off a computerized alert signal to all MITHRIL commands worldwide.

"Raido teamis two blocks away from the improvised bunker of a PLO commander andKenaz teamis in position for SIGNET CARVER," Raikov reported. Sachar could hear the status papers shuffled over the line, the thin crackle of dot-matrix printer paper all too familiar. "We can recall Raido, but that would blow a six-month infiltration."

"Keep them in position for now," Sachar said, covering the mouthpiece of the phone. "Someone kill that yellow alert!" he bellowed over the hooting alarm.

"It's not a yellow alert, sir!" a satellite communications operator called out from the far end of the command center. "Galadriel and Arwen have fallen out of orbit! They're moving toward the lower atmosphere!"

"What?" Sachar shouted. "Execute the operation, Ari, I'll be in contact," he barked into the phone before hanging it up and draining his coffee. He ignored his burned tongue as he half-jogged to the satellite console. "Give me a status report!"

"Orbital control in Command reported that as of 2300 hours our time, Arwen and Galadriel ceased to respond to communications relays, and they were brought down to a lower altitude. When they reached 17,000 miles, their vernier thrusters failed to fire, and the satellites are continuing downwards."

"So you're telling me," Sachar intoned every word carefully, "that both of our multimillion-dollar communications satellites stopped responding and are deorbiting?"

"That's affirmative, sir," the operator said carefully.

"Damn." Sachar gritted his teeth, wanting nothing more than a punching back at this point. "Get Shabra himself on the line!" he yelled over to the other operator. "Have Merida standing by to deploy the Pattons!"

The operator froze in mid-keystroke. "Sir?"

"MITHCENT has theirs. We have ours. Get the Pattons loaded and in the air, pronto!"

**MITHCENT Combat Operations Base  
Merida Island, Federated Republic of Micronesia  
3:50 AM local time**

Only minutes before, the shrill klaxon alarms had erupted all across the tiny island, bringing night watches to action and rousing literally every human body to action. Five C-5 Galaxy transport aircraft, nearly-unflyable monsters even under the best conditions, lumbered out of their hardened hangars built inside the extinct volcano that dominated the island. Their engines remained at a high idle, the pilots not wanting to take the time to shut them down and start them up.

Every moment counted as the volcano shelter disgorged ton upon ton of military hardware. Twelve soldiers – two groups of six each – boarded separate aircraft as bulky, shadowy metal shapes were disgorged from the volcano.

Covered in green-patterned camouflage netting, the shapes were backed in by modified tractor-trailer trucks. The other aircraft took on two Apache attack helicopters each, and just as the huge rear clamshell doors started to motor shut, the lead Galaxy practically leapt forward as the pilot applied power to move onto the taxiway.

The sound of all five Galaxies' engines screamed as they taxied off, replaced by screeching, low rumbles as they rotated off the tarmac. Coated in radar-absorbing materials, the huge aircraft disappeared to the west just as the first hints of dawn crept across the eastern horizon.

**To be continued...**


	13. In This Valley of Dying Stars

**A/N**: Apologies for the delay, but it's come to the point where I wanted to have my next chapter ready before posting the current one. However, due to con season throwing me into overload (I'm not only making my own costumes but writing our sketches and building our props... I'm looking forward to making a Box O' Communism for our MGS3 sketch at Otakon!) I've got more to do at work. See, kids, working in corporate America means you're doing the jobs of two people for the pay of 3/4ths of one person. Moreover, I'm trying to reallocate my funds so I can move out of my parents' house (I'm 22 years old, 23 next month, and still living with my parents. It's that damn car I had to buy in October (Read the first few chapters of my Comic Party fic, Deeper Water, for the shpiel there) but to do so, I still owe about $16,000 in student loans and the car.

It's basically the whole "real world" excuse interfering with my writing, but still, I apologize for not posting this sooner. I was waiting to hear back from more of my beta readers, but I'm assuming that they were similarly embroiled. In any case, many thanks to Lakewood and now Wild Goose 01 for their help in beta-reading this chapter. Enough babbling!

On with the show!

* * *

**"The Hollow Men" by T.S. Eliot, fourth canto **

"The eyes are not here  
There are no eyes here  
In this valley of dying stars  
In this hollow valley  
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting places  
We grope together  
And avoid speech  
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless  
The eyes reappear  
As the perpetual star  
Multifoliate rose  
Of death's twilight kingdom  
The hope only  
Of empty men."

* * *

_**12: In This Valley of Dying Stars**_

* * *

**Somewhere over Iran**  
**September 10th, 1981  
****2:30 PM local time (Eighteen hours after SIGNET CARVER, eight hours after the battle in the desert)**

"Mom? Mom!"

The gunfire was sudden, unexpected, and it tore through the terminal with a brutal swath.

"Mom! Wake up, Mom! Dad, please... please!"

The young boy was only fourteen years old, the worry on his trim, expressive face mixing with the thin trail of tear-streaked blood on his cheek from a glancing bullet. The _chiiing_ of a ricochet off of a cement column caused him to flinch in reflex, and he buried himself in the heaving, labored breaths of his mother beneath him.

"Tell your father..." a whisper, tainted with the gurgle of a sucking chest wound. "Tell him to take you and run..."

"Dad is..." The boy sniffled and looked over to his father, whose torso, once proudly toned from hours upon hours of judo, was evilly stitched with bullet wounds. "Dad is already dead, Mom..."

She coughed, placing her weak hands around her son's hand and meeting his almond eyes with her own. They were obviously tearing up from pain, but the fading brightness in them echoed with an untold source of joy. "I'm very proud of you, my dear..." she said, her breaths turning into weak wheezes punctuated by vicious coughing. "I'm glad that... so glad we got to see you win today..."

"Mom!" He grasped her hands holding his tightly, his protests drowned out again by gunfire. "Mom, don't leave me! I'll get help!"

Her dark almond eyes were already glazing over, the tears of anguish in her eyes slowly drying out amongst the clotting blood that was chaotically splashed on her face. He held her hand with his as her grip lessened, pressing it to his face.

"Mom!" he cried out. "Mom... please!"

The sound of boots stepping on shattered glass behind him made him flinch again, and he turned to the source of the sound. A tall, thin man with dark almond eyes and matted black hair, bearing an assault rifle at his side and disguised as a mechanic, looked down at the boy apologetically.

"This had meaning," he said in clear, literate Japanese. "It won't make up for it... but I'm sorry that we had to do this."

"You killed them!" the boy shouted back. "You killed my parents! You killed all these people?" He spread his arm out in the direction of the countless other dead and injured people, some fleeing from the man with the gun, others moaning with pain.

He shook his head. "I hate this. I hate doing this. But this is how we make progress..." He trailed off. "This is how things are done for the greater good."

"What are you doing!" another voice, speaking rapid Japanese as well, yelled out. "Come on! You've got to get out of here! The army is on its way!"

With a sudden twist and drop to a knee, the man with the gun fired off a three-round burst at the source of the shout. The boy turned to see a man, dressed in similar mechanics' coveralls, fall to the ground with a scream.

"For what it's worth..." the man by the boy whispered. "It was not for nothing..."

"MOOOOM!"

Kenji woke up in a cold sweat, his entire body tensing with the return of the nightmare and his throat dry and hoarse from his half-asleep cry for his mother. He tried to reach up to rub the sleep out of his eyes, but his hands seemed to be bound behind his back.

"Kenji? You okay?" he heard someone call out.

"Mark? Is that you?"

"Thank God!"

As Kenji blinked the sleep out of his eyes, he looked left at the source of the voice. It was completely dark, but a line of artificial light crept through a small crack behind him. He heard a scraping sound, and Mark's silhouette broke the light coming through the crack. "Are you all right?" Mark asked.

"My head hurts," he reported after stretching his neck muscles. "Other than that, I'm fine... what about you? Where's Gef?"

"Dunno," he replied. "I've been shuffling around here for a few hours since I regained consciousness. I guess bein' knocked out got us the extra sleep we've lost over the past few days." He chuckled nervously.

Kenji felt around his bound hands. "We're tied up with plastic zip-ties," he mumbled. "Damn. No way to break through them without something to cut 'em."

"They already got our weapons and gear." Mark shuffled a little closer to Kenji. "I don't feel my combat knife on me anywhere, and the bastards even took my hide-away nine."

"Wonderful." A series of sickening popping noises came from Kenji's wrists as he tried to force his own joints out of alignment, a common trick amongst escape artists, but to no avail. His wrists were bound tight enough to cut off circulation.

"I think I'm _glad_ you can't get out," Mark joked. "I _hate_ that sound, man."

"I don't suppose you'd be willing to use your teeth to get these undone?" Kenji joked. Mark couldn't see his wry grin in the darkness. "So where the hell are we?"

"We're in the dark, of course," Mark joked.

"I know that. I don't suppose you have any cyalume sticks on you?"

"They took everything, Kenji. Be thankful we've still got pants."

"Great. Can you stand up?"

There was a rustle of noise and a few _thunk_ noises as Mark balanced himself against a dark wall. "Okay, I'm up."

Kenji took a moment to struggle to his feet; they too were bound with a zip tie. He tossed his legs under himself and wiggled his toes to the floor, eventually coming to a standing position.

"At least we can hop around," Mark ventured, his boots _clang_ing against the floor of their apparent prison. "Feels like metal."

"So do the walls," Kenji added, knocking on the wall. It gave a similar metallic sound.

"Maybe we should look around." A few more _clang_s from Mark's boots echoed through the darkness, followed by a hollow _thunk_ a moment later.

"There's somethin' _solid_ in here!" Mark protested. "Ow, that shit hurts!"

"Yeah, that did sound painful." Kenji carefully hopped over to where Mark's noise had emerged, and after turning around, he bent forward so he could get a feel on the solid object.

It was far bigger than Kenji for sure; his hands kept running up the smooth, metallic surface. When he flicked it to test its consistency, it gave off a low, echoing _tock,_ more like a hollow piece of plastic rather than metal.

"Hey, this feels familiar..."

Mark hopped his way a little closer, still mumbling curses under his breath, and let loose a knock on the surface. It responded with a louder _thonk_ that echoed through the dark space.

"Let's try and figure out what the hell it is," Mark ventured. "I'll go this way, you-"

Mark was interrupted as he hopped off; his movement obscured by the _clink_ of glass.

"It just keeps getting interesting." Mark shuffled around to feel the object. "Feel like a drink?"

"What the hell are you talking about?"

There was another shuffling noise, and then the _tink tink_ of a fingernail on thick glass.

"I think we got ourselves a few bottles of wine here, Kenji."

"Wine?"

"Feels like it."

"As in bottles?"

"You think they'd put wine in a box?"

"Let me get one of those. Hang on, I'll come to you." Kenji hopped gingerly in the darkness, not wanting to bang his head or worse, and eventually ran into Mark.

"Here, feel for yourself." Mark bent down a little, lowering himself to hand the bottle off to Kenji. Despite his bindings, he could feel it: a smooth, thin neck with a wider bottom, culminating in the traditional dimpled punt at the bottom.

"Yeah, it's a wine bottle all right..." Kenji's voice trailed off in thought. "Wait right there, Mark."

"Huh?"

There were a few more hops, and then a sudden, loud smash of glass breaking.

"Jesus Christ, Kenji!"

"There's no water to work with here, Mark, just the wine." There were a few grunting noises, then an almost imperceptible snapping sound. "Got it! Stay right there."

"Clever bastard..." Mark shook his head as Kenji walked over and cut his hands free with a large shard of glass from the wine bottle. He flexed his hands, restoring the blood flow, and the two sergeants peered through the crack of light in their prison.

"Cargo boxes!" they exclaimed almost in unison.

A ten-foot high wall of green-painted steel that bore white-stenciled Hebrew and English letters obscured their view. Though their range of vision was limited by the tiny crack, they were able to see that theirs was one of at least two large airborne freight containers inside a dark green aircraft hull. The faint, distant _whirr_ of jet engines could be heard through the crack.

"So maybe we just waltz out and jump?" Mark asked.

Kenji pushed the door of their cargo container/prison outwards. A jangling of chains stopped him short. "No dice, my friend. We're chained shut."

"So what do we do now?"

Kenji felt his way over to the corner where he had found the wine bottle; after a few shufflings in the dark, he found an intact bottle and brought it over to the opening in the cargo container.

"'Drifting Snow Vineyards Cabernet-Sauvignon, 1973 Reserve," he read off of the label. It was simply decorated with a stylized blue snowflake adorning the label on the right side. "St. Helena, California. You know anything about wine?"

"Sorry, my brotha', but I only drink Colt Foty' Five," Mark remarked, throwing his ebonics into full. "I don' know 'bout wine unless it's Thunderbird."

"Mark..."

"Sorry, Kenji," Mark shook his head. "I don't know much, just that there's red, white, and Champagne."

"I know even less." Kenji narrowed his dark brown eyes, halfway puzzled by the presence of wine in their impromptu prison.

A door opened somewhere out of their visual range, and voices spoke in a rapid-fire language that neither was familiar with. The MITHRIL agents quietly crept away from the break in the container, hiding in the darkness, just as two sets of heavy footsteps approached.

"Ktal vara?" one asked, the tension evident in his voice. "Torlar kotor varz con'tvandar!"

"Taklor utarava," a rough response came. A set of keys jangled and quickly undid the lock and chains. The two sergeants tried to meet each others' eyes, but in the darkness, they couldn't see anything save for the shadows of two men with AK-47s silhouetted against the lights of the military cargo plane they seemed to be held in. Only then did they notice the trail of red wine dripping down through the grooves in the container's floor, slowly leaking out of the cargo box...

**The Helmaj base  
Somewhere in northeast Afghanistan  
That same time**

It had been a sleepless night for the soldiers. The dishes from their earlier meal still sat, collecting dust kicked up from the cold night wind, and they had long since depleted their canteens.

"It's like they're waiting for us to talk," Private Kuyvishev whispered to Sergeant Kadashvili in subdued Georgian. "We haven't even been separated, let alone interrogated yet."

"Don't think like that, Kuyvishev," Kadashvili shot back, his whispering voice edged in iron. "Paranoia is the last thing we need in this situation."

"But comrade sergeant," Kuyvishev protested. "The only way we can even communicate is in Georgian. Lieutenant Kalinin and Private Danilenko can't even understand us. If you weren't from Tbilisi and I didn't grow up near there, we wouldn't even be able to do this."

"Don't worry," Kadashvili patted the young man on the back. "We're not leaving anyone behind and the Helmaj won't learn anything from us."

Kalinin eyed the two soldiers speaking quietly in their native language. _Open up to each other,_ he silently urged. _We were never meant to be this deep in Helmaj turf. There are only four of us, and we must all band together if we're going to-_

The tent flap opened, flooding the dark canvas shelter with the burning brightness of the sun rising at the far end of the valley. Kalinin turned, shielding his eyes, as Rashid entered and sat down, two armed guards taking up position outside. They closed the tent flap as Majid crossed his legs and cleared his throat.

"I have spoken to Helmajin Helmaj," he pronounced in careful, slow Russian, intoning the last two words in an unfamiliar accent, separate from his heavy South Asian inflections that he normally carried. "He will be back amongst his people soon, and he will then decide what is to be done with you."

"What has been done with others in our place?" Kalinin asked as neutrally as he could muster.

"Most have joined us of their own free will," Majid casually responded. "We save our strength for the battlefield, not recruitment. It is a waste for my men to torture prisoners. The only Soviets and mudjehedeen we have had die on us were those who wandered out of the camp, trying to escape on foot. It is usually the mountains that claim them."

Majidsnapped his fingers. Another tray was brought in; there was a steaming pot that smelled like fresh herbs, some old flatbread, fresh milk, and a milky block of cheese.

"We have eaten the same food since long before the Soviets came," he remarked. "Even before the British, even before the Moghuls and the Persians clashed with the Afghans. I like to take my meals with as many people as I can who have little knowledge of the Helmaj."

"I think we know all we need to," Private Danilenko mumbled. Kadashvili and Kalinin simultaneously shot him angry looks. The last thing they needed was to provoke their captors.

"You sound as if you have fought against a Helmaj," Majid tut-tutted. "You should count yourself lucky to be alive."

"Your boys shot some fireworks at us earlier," Kadashvili chimed in. "You shot down our helicopter and killed the flight crew. I owe you one for doing this number on my arm." Kadashvili patted his left forearm gently; a sling had been fashioned from a torn-off strip of his field jacket.

"We have little in the means of medical supplies," Majid said as he maneuvered the tray of food in the middle of the soldiers. "We will fashion a better fixative for you later. Please, eat. There will be very little for you to do until Helmajin Helmaj returns."

"Who is this 'Helmajin Helmaj' person?" Kalinin asked.

"It is hard to explain," Majid said after thinking for a moment. "In the Helmaji language, it would mean 'king of kings.' Helmajin Helmaj has proven himself worthy of being Helmajin Helmaj by defeating the one who came before him, all the way back to Khaur'on Helmaj – the Dragon King – who first led the Helmaj from the caves to their first conquests in the mountains."

"Let me get this straight. Whomever is strong enough to defeat a 'Helmajin Helmaj' becomes the new leader of all the Helmaj?" Kalinin inquired, raising an eyebrow. "That doesn't seem like a stable way to ensure your people's leadership."

"It is effective for our causes. The Helmaj have survived only by the constant raiding and banditry of ancient times, but each Helmajin Helmaj has ensured that he will be the best in what we require. In order to survive, the Helmaj must fight and expand until the call of Khaur'on Helmaj is heard through all the world."

"Quite a daunting goal," Danilenko joked. "Who is this 'Khaur'on Helmaj,' and what did he do that's so great?"

"Comrade private, why not shut the _hell_ up?" Kadashvili shouted down his subordinate.

"Khaur'on Helmaj was the first Helmaj," Majid ignored the younger man's remark. "In time immemorial, he was the first to conquer the sun itself and force it to retreat in the darkness. He unified the Helmaj as a people and set us forth upon our destiny. He was killed in a great battle, but it took thousands of demons in orange robes and golden armor to sway his sword, and thousands more to strike him down. His last breath was our battle cry. 'Helmajin tarook!'" Majid harshly whispered the last line, making Danilenko wince with the force of the rallying call. "It means 'Helmaj shall conquer.'"

Kalinin hesitated to ask him about the golden dagger that had been confiscated along with their equipment. It took him some willpower to remember the prisoner that had given it to him, the ferocity of his eyes even in captivity.

"I do not know how many Helmaj you have fought," Majid quietly remarked, standing back up, as if to mourn his fallen warriors. "But every single one you have fought would have happily died in what they have done."

"For what?" Kalinin quietly asked.

Majid did not reply. Instead, he turned around, opened the tent flap, and made his way out.

"To fulfill the words of Helmajin Helmaj," he said as he faced away from the soldiers. "His words were 'conquer all that stands before you and claim the entire world in the name of the Helmaj.'"

**To be continued...**


	14. In This Last of Meeting Places

**A/N:** Wow, a lot happened. A lot. I broke up with my girlfriend, moved out of my parents' house, got back together with my girlfriend, went to Otakon and had a kickass time, and finally got inspiration to FINALLY CONTINUE THIS THING. 

FMP: TSR is getting subbed, and it is so much awesomeness. It's Owari Day by Day as I had hoped to see it so far... awesome awesome awesome.

Did anyone go to Otakon this year? I actually asked the ADV panel what was up with TSR, the novels, the FMP: Sigma manga, and other stuff with the FMP license. They couldn't confirm or deny, which is ADV at-con language for "We're working on it." It'd be highly unlikely that they don't get the license for all the other properties, but since it hasn't happened yet, I'd like to know what's up...

This is being submitted with only 1/3rd of my beta readers signing off on it. It's been too long since I uploaded, so any changes will be coming through as they sound off.

Enough babble.

On with the show!

* * *

_**13: In This Last of Meeting Places**_

* * *

**Somewhere over Iran  
****2:35 PM local time**

The jangling of chains preceded the _kchak_ of the key lock coming undone. Neither agent could read the other's facedue to the darkness, but even if they could, they didn't have much time to plan. The doors of the cargo box flew open, casting bright artificial light into the cargo container, simultaneously illuminating the cargo.

"Stakarj thoy..." one quietly exclaimed as he whistled, impressed.

It didn't get much farther than that. Kenji leapt out from the shadows, ducking low as he kicked hard at the muzzle of the rifle the man held. It spun backwards, smashing into the soldier's face; with a swift combination of footwork and leverage, Kenji managed to spin behind the soldier and execute a smooth hip-throw. A quick, sharp open-palm to the back of the man's head knocked him out cold.

"You're too damn fancy," Mark critiqued, standing over the prone body of the other soldier. The man's nose was bloodied and one eye looked bruised, swelling up and turning black. Mark grabbed the AK he'd dropped and checked the chamber, flipping the safety on. Kenji did the same with the other soldier's rifle.

"Some of us refined our martial arts, whereas others just scrapped too much on the streets in our youths," Kenji responded flatly. "Chain them together. Hurry!"

"Well, you're certainly creative," Mark remarked. He grabbed one end of the metal-link chain and tossed the other to Kenji. They wrapped the chain around the two soldiers' torsos and arms and fastened it around them with the lock. "Now what do we have here..."

The aircraft's cabin was noisy with the low growl of turboprop engines, and its internal lights shined clearly upon a gigantic metallic leg. Silver hydraulic tubes and masses of wiring, most of it shredded to bits, peered visibly under a patchwork of multicolored armor.

"We found our Leapfrog leg..." Kenji breathed, quickly striding up to it while checking for traps. "How big is this thing?"

"Figure at least twenty-five feet if this is a standard cargo container." Mark scratched his head before heading up to it, examining what he could from a hole in the thigh of the giant metal limb. "Jesus Christ, look at all this stuff. These circuits don't look like anything I've ever seen. They feel a little bit different than normal silicon, too."

"Mark, you were in the desk analysis division. How's your Russian?" Kenji pointed to a faded stencil, the Cyrillic letters "Вооруженный слейвд оружие Rk-65" barely visible in black spraypaint.

"A little bit..." Mark peered at the letters. "I don't remember much of it, though... MITHRIL's lousy with language training. Armament... servant cannon? I'm not sure. It looks like they're messin' with root words. Gef's the one who knows Russian, and we don't know where the hell she is."

"They took our Minoxes, didn't they?" Kenji patted his pockets. "Damn. We needed those cameras."

"Au contraire, mon friere," Mark said with a chuckle. "They took _your_ Minox. But mine... well... it's hidden in the only place a black man wouldn't get checked."

Kenji turned to his partner. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Afro power!" Mark shouted, plunging his hand into his inches-thick 'fro and pulling out the tiny Minox covert camera.

Kenji blinked twice, then shook his head. "I can**not** believe you keep your gear in your afro."

"Believe what you want," Mark quipped as he started snapping pictures. "Let's get some data and find a way outta this flying trash can."

"Sounds good. Cover me."

Mark chambered a round and moved to the side of the container, dropping down to one knee and sighting down the AK-47 towards the doors. "Clear forward," he said.

"OK. I'll go right." Of course, Kenji moved left, sighting down the rifle he had taken from the fallen soldier. He took one slow, deliberate step, taking his time and shifting his weight off of his stepping foot. The stalking maneuver wasn't meant for speed, but neither agent knew who – or _what_ – might have come around to check up on their patrols.

One foot, then another, took Kenji to the open doors of the cargo container. The rear of the aircraft was empty; it had rows of jumpseats folded up. _Probably an Antonov,_ he thought. _Or maybe a cargo-conversion Tupolev Bear?_

Kenji raised his left hand in a fist and then quickly dropped it down towards his elbow: the signal to advance. He could only hear Mark's breathing as his partner moved forward. Kenji kept sighting down the barrel of the AK, ready to fire.

They both jumped, almost pulling their triggers, when a loudspeaker crackled over the roar of the engines.

"Check all cargo for landing," an accented female voice called out. "Verify shock absorbers and clamp down the tensioners. This is a rough-field landing and we might blow a main tire. Five minutes to descent."

The engines' tone deepened as their power was decreased, slowing the RPMs.

"That wasn't..." Kenji shook his head. "No, no way. I-"

"Hey, beautiful dreamer, snap out of it. We gotta hide these guys somewhere and figure out what the hell we're gonna do once we actually touch down," Mark snapped, picking up one of the unconscious soldiers.

"Shit. You're right. Quick , roll their sleeves and cuffs over the chains and hide the rest in the folds of their clothes. Then we can strap them into jumpseats and think of something that way."

The droning of the engines deepened as the pilot reduced a little more power and the cargo plane entered into a long, slow descent. In the cargo area, the two unconscious soldiers had since been strapped down to look like they had simply fallen asleep on the long flight. The two agents were nowhere to be seen.

"Commencing descent. Prepare for any possible evasive maneuvers; the Soviets may shoot at us," the voice called out once again. Though he wasn't visible, Kenji still felt more nervous than he should upon hearing it speak. "We'll be in Helmajin Shartash within a half-hour," it concluded with a hint of triumph.

**32,000 feet over the Sinai Peninsula  
****September 11th, 1981  
****5:30 AM local time**

"Drop point IP inbound: six minutes. Commence depressurization. CAVOK."

"Load bolsters removed, all chocks disengaged. Crew boarding and securing complete. Armament checks handed over to drop team."

"Roger. Balrog Five reports pre-drop checklist complete. Switching drop control back to Balrog Lead."

"Balrog flight, this is Lead. Threat warning receiver indicates 'Tall King' search from Cairo, 'Straight Flush' radar from the Suez belt defensive line, and intermittent 'Long Track' search radar coming from two-five-five, most likely also from the Suez line. Possible Blindfire and Dagger indications from the Israeli front line. Radar, aircraft, and drop parameters are well within acceptable range for deployment. Continue the drop."

"Balrog Five copies. Advise as to status of our cargo. Not equipped with Pattons."

"Balrog Two copies. Still rerouting hydraulic pressure to our primary disengagement system. Not within acceptable parameters, repeat, NOT within acceptable parameters. Preparing for emergency re-engagement system. Loadmaster recommends abort, over."

"Copy, Balrog Two. Stagger to number five position and stand by. Sequence update moves Two to Five's position. All aircraft, re-form in left wedge formation. Balrog Five, abort your drop, maintain formation."

The 'front office' of the lead C-5 was tense. The pilot had his hands full controlling the gigantic cargo aircraft, and the constant beeping of his threat receiver indicated sweeps from Soviet and Israeli surface-to-air missile radars. Fortunately, the radar-absorbent coatings on the Galaxies did just as they had been developed to do. The copilot was busy working on engine and fuel output, load-balance trim, and pressure management all throughout the aircraft, not to mention maintaining the secure laser-communication link between the aircraft, a task made difficult by high-altitude winds. Neither was able to function without sweating, either from the burden of the high-altitude drop or the subtle presence of a commanding general behind them.

"This is far too easy," General Andrew Sachar grumbled. He had been strapped into the jumpseat behind the flight crew since the clear air over the Indian Ocean had allowed him one last visit to the head. "I don't like this situation one bit."

"I know it's less than optimal," a tinny, disembodied male voice echoed through his headset. "To be frank, the entire situation concerning the Snowdrift and the Pattons has been less than optimal since your predecessor was running NAPA VALLEY as an agent."

"Movement on the ground has steadily increased since the balloon went up. There are a total of three Egyptian and one Israeli heavy armored divisions fighting on a front that spans the entire western Sinai Peninsula. The Israelis have been contesting the Egyptian air superiority over the battlefield for the past six hours, according to satellite and command-level intelligence, so we're going to be dropping our Pattons in unsupported. We can't run the Galaxies in at low level with the SAM threat, and there's no way the Apaches will be able to get set up and moving in the time it'd take for them in free-fall."

"It'd be best if they had the air cover for this battle, but the shock of seeing them should be all that's needed to begin operations. SIGNET CARVER is meant to accomplish exactly the same thing as SIGNET RING. So far, everything is going as it should."

"But SIGNET CARVER doesn't need the Pattons to succeed, Commander," Sachar pleaded. "We can't do this just yet. It tips our hand. The Soviets have been a generation ahead of us for some time now, and the Americans... well, they sure as hell won't like having the lid blown off of their pet project either!"

"General Sachar, I am aware of your protests against the Pattons and SIGNET CARVER as it stands," the voice replied. It was soothing, almost reassuring, saying "I'm on your side" without speaking the words. "The state of the situation required me to issue the orders. We can't hold off the third Gulf War for long. There are flare-ups across the globe. MITHRIL's back is against the wall; the Americans are engaging in militaristic policy enforcement in MITHSOUTH's area of responsibility, MITHEUR is busy operating against the Turkish Army's insurrections into Kurdistan, MITHAF is trying to suppress rebellions all over the continent, and I don't need to tell you about the tensions between Iran and Iraq. The Soviets are backing everyone from Cuba to Cambodia. Simply put, we cannot ignore the scale and scope of the Cold War anymore. If we do, it turns hot very, very quickly."

Sachar was silent.

"I do understand," the Commander reassured. "So long as I am in charge of MITHRIL and the men and women who fight under us – be they mercenaries, mechanics, or volunteers – I will forever abhor the practices that force us to escalate our involvement. But I swear upon the credo we all swore upon. We will do whatever is necessary to protect humanity, just as mithril, the mythical metal, was valued for its unflinching, unbreaking protection."

"I understand, sir," Sachar nodded, exhaling deeply.

"I know that you can pull this off, Andy," the Commander said encouragingly. "Three wars in this region is far too many. It's up to you to stop it, and I know that I can count on you."

"Understood, Commander. Sachar out."

General Sachar took off the spare headset plugged into the alternate secure laser-comm radio frequency. "What's our status?" he asked as he put his crash helmet back on.

"ETA at drop point is two minutes and twenty-seven seconds. Balrog Two has shifted to abort position. Balrog Five has confirmed its position on the outside line and is turning back to refuel at Diego Garcia. No radar acquisition as of yet," the pilot reported.

"On the ground?"

"The Israeli 18th Brigade has moved beyond Bir al-Rummanah to engage the north flank and make a push for the Canal entrance at Port Said. The fighting is spreading as far south as Abu Zanimah, and the Egyptians haven't advanced any further east past An Nakhl," the copilot read off of a report fresh from their intel printer. "This is about six hours old; with Arwen and Galadriel down, we can't relay field intel reports as quickly."

"Two minutes and five... four... three... two... one... mark, two minutes until drop."

Sachar keyed the transmit switch on the comm system. "Balrog Flight, this is Morgoth. All aircraft, report your status."

"This is Balrog Three. Two minutes to drop. Holding for confirmation."

"Four here. Cargo is primed and load has been cleared for drop. Boarding is a little slow but on schedule."

"Balrog Two, holding in abort turn."

"Five, on Two's wing, also in abort turn."

"CAVOK on all aircraft. Stand by," the pilot of Balrog One reported. He keyed off his mike and turned behind him. "General?"

Sachar swallowed and looked over his shoulder briefly. The loadmaster and dropmaster had just returned from the cargo hold and had sealed the door behind them in order to begin the depressurization process.

_I want nothing more than to order the pilots out and abort this mission,_ he thought. _Of all the worst-case scenarios, this has to be** the** worst..._

"Commence the drop," Sachar ordered, his throat dry.

"Acknowledged. Drop will commence." The pilot got back on the laser-comm. "Balrog flight, commence CHISEL IMPACT. I repeat, commence CHISEL IMPACT."

It took a full sixty seconds for the huge rear ramps of the C-5s to open, the windblast howling against the ramps as they were forced down by the powerful hydraulic systems. The cargo holds were unlit, as were the outsides of the aircraft, blacker than the night sky around them. Equally black drogue parachutes billowed behind each aircraft, quickly pulling a lumpy, disorganized shape behind it. The three C-5s in the drop pattern each disgorged two of the shapes; they quickly accelerated downwards before their main parachutes deployed at barely six thousand feet above the ground.

The metal shapes dug several feet into the sand as automated systems cut the lines on the parachutes, casting them willy-nilly across the wind. Landing just as they had departed Merida – just at the red twilights of dawn – six shadows, eerily human-shaped, stood up straight for the first time in the Sinai Peninsula. As if synchronized, six sets of sensors turned on, their cameras lit red with built-in IR illumination.

"Fehu one here," a secure radio tramission went out. "Commencing operation CHISEL POINT."

**Karachi, Pakistan  
****6:30 AM local time**

"Put him down!" he screamed in Russian, not even thinking about using English.

"Hinter ab!" the SS trooper yelled back in German, hefting the bayonet of his rifle closer to the young man's neck. The blade drew some blood, cutting far too close into the flesh of his chin. "Hau ab, oder ich schlachte ihn jetzt gleich!"

"Drop the gun and let him go!" he tried in Czech. Switching to Russian, he started barking orders at his squad: "Boris, back your men away!"

_Drop your gun; take it easy with him... _

"Sniper! Sniper in that warehouse!"

The _crack_ of a Soviet rifle sounded just as the soldiers fell back. It struck the SS trooper in the chest, and the reflexive jerk of his arms thrust the bayonet square through the front of the young man's throat.

"No!" he yelled out, tossing aside his rifle and rushing forward just as the German sniper fired. A flash of white was all he saw, coupled by the tinny ring of a telephone.

He didn't know if the phone or the nightmare had woken him up. He was used to the latter jarring him out of sleep; sometimes it was coupled with sobbing tears against Kiriko's chest, her hands on his back, gently embracing him. Others it was in sheer rage, shouting out commands, shouts of protest, a cry of pain on the thrust of the bayonet, or on the impact of the bullet...

"Steinberg," he half-grumbled into the phone, scratching the sore spot on his forehead.

"Meester Steinberg, this is Rafiq Akbar of Pakistan International Sea Cargo at port of Karachi," the Urdu-accented voice on the other line announced itself in broken English. "I have cargo shipment clear customs for you just now at docks. I hold for you per agreement."

"Good." Richard Sonoma kicked his legs out of bed as he yawned. "I'll be there in an hour with my truck."

"Very good, sir. We are dock 14-A1."

"Right. Be there soon."

He hung up the phone, trying not to rouse Kiriko, who was still blissfully asleep next to him. The other room of the hotel had a small desk with another phone where he could talk. The next call went to a heavy truck dealership that few people knew about. A briefcase already waited with ten thousand American dollars in used bills destined for the dealer.

He was at the docks in 45 minutes, struggling with the transmission on the clunky old Opel flatbed. The only reason he had bought it on the spot was because it was well-versed in mountainous routes. The dealer had inquired over tea – a welcome thing for Richard – quite honestly and openly if he planned to haul weapons for the CIA into Afghanistan. "I get many American who want bring guns to _mudje,_" he had explained. Richard had laughed.

"Not for the guerillas," he said. "Just for myself."

The Opel truck roared up to the noisy, crowded cargo ship dock, its protesting gearbox drowned out by the constant movements of cranes, pipelines, and forklifts. People were everywhere, some clad in coveralls, others in the simple _shalwar kamis_ – the traditional Pakistani lightweight clothes. Richard hopped out and tried his best to blend in with the crowd as he opened the creaking door to an office trailer.

"You must be Meester Steinberg," the only man in the office inquired as Richard shut the door. "We have cargo for you ready."

"Good, I have a truck outside. Where do I sign?"

**Several hours later On the N25 Motorway**  
**West-Central Sind Province, Pakistan  
****300 miles north of Karachi**

The old Opel didn't like being in fourth gear very much, and that suited Richard Sonoma just fine. The Pakistani Highway Constabulary concerned itself more with border affairs, and he was content to go at as fast a speed northbound as he could muster. There was no point in hurrying to accelerate; it was just an effort to get the third gear past redline before shifting up all of two gears.

"You sure this thing can make it?" Kiriko asked with a yawn. She had declined any coffee, tea, or juice, merely opting to fall right back asleep as they had begun their drive northward.

"I'm sure that we won't have any problems," Richard remarked, patting her denim-clad thigh gently. She had traded in her more fashionable sun dress in for hardier clothes, just as he had. "Besides, we've got our backup in case we need it."

"That's true," Kiriko said through another yawn. "I wish I wasn't so sleepy... it's hard to reformulate the wiring and hydraulic diagrams while fighting through jet lag."

"Don't worry about it, Kiri. I swear, you work yourself too hard."

Kiriko stretched her arms and rested her head on Richard's shoulder, wrapping an arm across his chest. "I don't mind, Richie. I really don't. Besides, if I stop now, what would everything be worth?"

Richard glanced at the analog clock on the dashboard of the old Opel. "We've still got at least a ten-hour drive ahead of us. Better get some sleep."

"What about you?"

Richard squeezed the hard vinyl steering wheel, the cracking, old material resilient against his strong grip. "There are enough sleepers in this world, Kiriko. I'd rather not join them unless I have zero other options."

**_To be continued..._**


	15. The Perpetual Star

**A/N:** At this time, I'm switching the Helmaji language from the actual sounds that we hear to translation. Readers will see anything spoken inanother languagedemarcated by # signs. doesn't allow non-language characters like brackets or carets, which I think is disadvantageous in this situation. My beta team has commented that this is not a good idea having characters like that mark off foreign languages. I contend that it's better to see those characters than "'Blah blah blah,' so-and-so said in Helmaj." The nature of this fic has multiple languages in it, and this just serves to denote when someone's in another language. I understand that this might break up the story, but has tied my hands. Please direct all complaints about this to them.

In the beginning, I intended to create the Helmaji language from the ground up and let the reader notice the commonalities and stuff, but it came to the point that I don't think people are reading this to learn a language. ;-)

For reference, the words in brackets are exactly what those who know the language hear, mispronunciations, missed words, and all. If you don't know a language like a native, of course you're going to have problems understanding it. Just a bit for authenticity.

On with the show!

* * *

**_14: The Perpetual Star_**

* * *

**The Helmaj base**  
**3:05 PM**

"#Clear the flats!#" the bullhorn called out. "#The new weapons cache has arrived!#"

"Sounds like something is up," Sergeant Kadashivili remarked to his officer. "It's quite a bustle out there."

"From what we've been told by both our superiors and this Majid person, I doubt the Helmaj are content to be left alone," Kalinin said as he rubbed his goateed chin in thought. "They're worse than the _mudje_ simply on battle tactics alone, but the fact that they push outwards is what really concerns me."

"#I see the aircraft! It's an Antonov! Helmajin Helmaj's personal Antonov is coming in!#"

The soldiers' ears perked up. "They just said something about an Antonov..." Kuyvishev mused. "Maybe it's from the 103rd Guards Airborne, finally come to blast their way in and rescue us?"

"Only thing the 103rd will blast through is a crate of vodka. Probably someone's old Cub ferrying cargo around. Maybe they've got someone who can handle those beasts?" Kadashvili tried to heft himself back to his feet, despite his injury.

"Stay down, comrade sergeant. I'll go take a look." Kalinin held up a hand as he stood up and made his way to the far end of the tent, around the remnants of their lunch from earlier. "You know what to do if I don't make it back."

"Comrade lieutenant, we aren't going anywhere," Private Danilenko protested. "If it's an attack, they'll probably think we're the enemy and blow us to pieces."

"Comrade private, I'm sure that none of us thought we'd end up as Helmaj captives when we were on our way back to Konduz, no?" Kalinin quizzed. "The Soviet Army doesn't deal in certainties, and we're still Soviet soldiers until the day we die or are told otherwise."

Danilenko couldn't help but agree.

"#Set up the beacons! Khalil, pop a smoke flare at the southern edge of the flats! Get over with Popov and stay on guard! The rest of you standing over there, get the mules and trailers ready to haul cargo! Move!#" Majid was barking out orders alternating between a bullhorn and a radio microphone; a ragged Helmaj soldier bore the heavy field radio pack a step behind the Helmaj commander.

"We are receiving Helmajin Helmaji's cargo," Majid said without acknowledging Kalinin. "He has promised us the final weapons we will need to crush your invading army."

"Final weapons?" Kalinin could hear the droning of turboprop engines. "Sounds like a cargo plane... but we don't have any aircraft in-theater capable of handling helicopters..."

"That is because these are not helicopters. Nor are they tanks. I am not surprised you don't know what I am referring to."

_If it's not a tank or a Hind... they probably have all the munitions they need, so unless they're getting some sort of armored vehicle, I have no clue what else the Helmaj could employ to keep pushing against us and the mudjehedeen._

"#Aircraft spotted! Confirmed as an Antonov-8!#"

Kalinin's eyebrow rose at the familiar name. "Antonov? You have a Soviet transport aircraft?"

Majid didn't answer; the man had already started trotting off towards an open part of the valley. In the distance, Kalinin could see a dark speck in the bright afternoon sky, flying parallel to the Helmaj valley headquarters.

"Comrades, we may have a ticket out of here," Kalinin mumbled in intentionally garbled-sounding Russian as he got back into the tent. "There is an Antonov-8 inbound, and unless they've specifically stripped them, there are bound to be radios in there. Soviet radios. Soviet radios with Soviet encryption chips in them..."

"...So if we can sneak over there, we'll have these ragheaded terrorists by the balls!" Kadashvili slapped down on his knee triumphantly. "Damn this sprain. Send me out, comrade lieutenant!"

"Your leg is broken, comrade sergeant, and it'll shatter under the weight of your ever-inflating ego," Kalinin flatly replied, with the hints of a rare smile on his face. "We're in hostile territory, so I'll ask you privates if you'd like to volunteer."

Kuyvishev and Danilenko looked at each other for barely a moment before coming to their feet. "We're with you, comrade lieutenant," Danilenko said. The Kazakh private drew himself to attention and saluted proudly. Kuyvishev did the same, barely concealing the wince from his sprained wrist that hadn't fully de-swelled.

"Good. Let's go reconnoiter the scene and see what's going on."

The Antonov's wheels touched the dusty alkali flats and bounced once on ground effect. The pilot swiftly compensated, bringing the nose down, and all three landing gears' shock absorbers started working overtime. The bumps and vibrations rattled the aircraft and its cargo, both known and unknown.

"I feel like I could be writin' a song just now," Mark quipped over the propellors' reverse pitch. "'You don't really love me, you just keep me hangin' on.'"

"Funny." Kenji tightened his grasp on the ceiling load struts, his strong, stocky muscles working overtime. The two agents had managed to clamber up into the ceiling bays of the Antonov-8, normally reserved for extra cargo netting, and were blending in with the un-lit shadows of the aircraft. Aside from Mark almost getting jarred loose during the landing, they had somehow managed to remain concealed from the unconscious soldiers, neither of whom were happy about being chained together.

"Where the hell could they hide?" one of them was yelling as the aircraft slowed down; they had already clambered out of their chains.

"Just secure some weapons when we land. If they've got our AKs, it doesn't make sense for us to take them unarmed. We're already on the ground, so –"

The rear cargo door motored down with a roar of heavy hydraulics, and as the propellers powered down, a great cloud of dust was kicked into the cargo hold. A group of ten Helmaj soldiers waited with ropes and chains attached to four stolen Soviet UAZ trucks.

"#Get this thing out of here and send for an armed platoon!#" one of the soldiers in the plane called out as he rushed down the ramp. "#There are at least two armed soldiers inside the plane!#"

The ten – now twelve – men hitched the chains up and started physically heaving the multi-ton cargo container off of the Antonov, backed up by the UAZs. The pilot and copilot tromped down as well, but bypassed the heavy lifting team.

"#Did you secure the cockpit on the way out?#" the pilot asked as he pulled off his flight helmet, tossing his stringy dark hair about and shaking away the sweat.

"#It should be secure,#" his copilot replied in a feminine, strangely-accented voice. She had come onto the Antonov from the Hip that had ferried her wearing the helmet, not revealing a name or anything else to identify her. "#Those two are of no significance. Neither of them knows how to fly a cargo plane, nor can they read Russian all too well.#"

"#It still bothers me that we let them on, and –#"

"#This came from Helmajin Helmaj himself,#" the copilot snapped, turning to face the taller man. She balled her fists in anger, and he didn't have to guess at the fire that burned in her eyes behind the smoked-plastic visor. "#If you want to question his orders, why not face him and try to take his title like all the others?#"

"#Easy, easy,#" the pilot supplicated. "#We'll leave them alone, just as he ordered.#"

The dust cloud still hung in the un-ventilated air of the Antonov's cargo hold. The haulers had since physically pulled the cargo container out of the aircraft, but the search party still had to work their way through.

"#I'm going to get my hands on Mikhail Kalashnikov himself and find out why the hell he didn't design a light mount for the AK-47,#" one soldier mumbled as he awkwardly held a flashlight and a pistol, taking cautious steps forward. "#Shahid, take up the rear.#"

The reflections of the flashlights blinked under the closed cockpit door, and it didn't take much for the shouting voices to echo throughout the Antonov. Mark silently worked on the radio, rewiring an already-exposed instrument panel. With a nod, he gave a thumbs-up to his partner. All that Kenji saw was a morass of wiring, but apparently he had done something to the aircraft's radio system.

The wrenching open of the cockpit windscreen made the agents jump. Outside, they could see a uniform-clad arm loosening one of the bolts that held down the thick safety glass.

They traded desperate looks as the arm loosened the bolts quickly, all the while with the slow approach of combat boots and shouting voices in a strange language encroached them, every step a kettledrum strike, every raspy shout a tolling bell.

Just then, the windscreen was pulled easily away and tossed down to the ground, and the infiltrator leapt in from the roof of the aircraft...

**The Sinai  
That same time**

"Fehu Six, this is Fehu Two. You're lagging behind, advance to the edge of the Israeli advance and head them off!"

"Six, this is two. I've got four Merkavas that are trying to flank me. Be about sixty seconds."

"Make it thirty. Blow them away if you have to!"

"Roger!"

It was all McAllen could do to shake the sweat away from his face. The angular, ablative-armored torso section of the M-5 Patton Arm Slave wasn't designed for cooling, save for the minimum required antifreeze and coolant for the heavy Allison turbocharged gas turbine engine. Its ever-present roaring whine, indicating smooth run-up to 33,000 RPM, had long since been blocked out by his sound-canceling headphones, and the heat running off the engine had only made the desert exterior worse.

The Patton had already taken four hits from Israeli HEAT rounds, and the armor had certainly done its job. The torso was scorched from the impacts' explosive force, but aside from a secondary hydraulic fluctuation on the right arm, the Patton still fought like it was brand-new.

"Dammit!" McAllen forced the Patton into a hard dodge, kicking the left foot-pedal control to the side and yanking hard left on his twin control sticks. The gigantic, split-toed legs immediately forced the unit to the side, engine roaring as it strained to maintain power to the high-speed hydraulic pumps. Not a moment too soon, the Patton had dodged the rushing approach of an American-made TOW antitank missile.

"Don't shoot at me, I'm trying to help!" McAllen yelled to nobody in particular, pulling his right control trigger. Still locked on to the M113 APC he had been targeting earlier, the Patton's right arm extended its gigantic Boxer cannon, kicking out a rapid burst of three 105mm recoilless rounds. They traced three huge holes into the thin armor of the APC, visible only for a moment as the vehicle exploded in a blossom of flame.

"Fehu Two, this is Fehu Three. Do you require support?"

"Affirmative!" McAllen rotated his control sticks and foot pedals to bring the unit back to its feet, springing up with a leap. He fought the sudden vertical sensation's g-force just as he triggered a leap on the pedals. "I can't move up the phase line until I can break through this tank platoon!"

"Understood. Fehu Three is en route to support Fehu Two."

The hawk-like head of the Patton tracked in on the column of tanks he had been attacking, four Israeli Merkavas in a line-abreast formation, eacha hundred yards apart. The sudden burst in altitude registered on the bright green lettering of McAllen's heads-up display, broadcasting a live image from its external sensors. He made it up to eighty feet, the apex of his leap, before flicking a fire control switch on his right trigger. This time, individual Boxer shots blasted one Merkava through the engine compartment, disabling the vehicle; another Boxer round blasted clean through the turret armor of another. The crew of the first tank threw themselves to the ground as they bailed out of their vehicle, trying to evade the fragments from the latter.

"What in the name of God are those things?" the tank commander asked his driver, helping the injured young man to his feet as they limped away from their burning vehicle.

"I wish I knew, Lieutenant," the driver replied, wincing from the pain of his cracked ribs; the earth nearby had shaken as the Patton had landed hard on its feet and started running to the northwest. "They came out of nowhere and started shooting at us _and_ the Egyptians."

"At least those Arab bastards are getting it hard, too," the lieutenant angrily growled as he glared at the departing, scorched rear of the Patton. He didn't see the other one, armed with a 30mm Gatling gun, taken straight from an A-10 Warthog jet, dash up to the side of their attacker. It swept the ranks of the Israeli armored division like a harvester with a scythe, holding back the advance of the IDF troops. They couldn't see the same beating being taken by the Egyptian brigades on the far side of the line, the Egyptian artillery advantage long since negated by Israeli air strikes.

"Fehu Four to all. I've stopped the southern flank and pushed them back two hundred yards. Fehu One is leading the advance up towards Fehu Six's position. Moderate damage on our team. Bofors rounds have been exhausted, operating on internal weapons only."

"Copy that. Six and Three are in position Charlie at phase line Alpha. We've pushed back the Israeli advance as well and have established a perimeter at Charlie."

"All, One here. Check in at point Charlie and move out on your patrols. Shift to defensive rules of engagement only. Fire only if fired upon."

A metallic _thunk_ sounded as Fehu Three, setting aside its rapid-fire Bofors cannon, delivered a comradely steely pat on the back to his squadmate. The stocky Arm Slaves turned to face each other for a second, the metal-framed heads 'looking' at each other, as if exchanging a signal visible only to the mecha. They headed north in a slow jog, eventually settling behind a sand berm a kilometer away from position Charlie.

Slowly, the Arm Slaves deployed in a scattered line, barely bothering to camouflage themselves, parked square in the middle of no-mans-land between the Egyptian and Israeli armies.

"Morgoth, this is Fehu One," the Arm Slaves' secure radios crackled. "We are at the bridge. Repeat, we are at the Bridge."

"Copy, Fehu One," Sachar radioed back, making note of the date and time on a transmission logbook. "Hold your position. CHISEL POINT moves into phase two at this time."

"Fehu One, holding the Bridge in defensive ROE, copy all, out." The radio went silent.

Sachar dialed in to a telephonic radio frequency, basically a hijacked cell phone signal, before making another transmission.

**Israeli Defense Force Headquarters**

The jangling of the brick-like portable phone made everyone in the conference room jump, including its operator. The young MITHRIL staff sergeant picked up the receiver, listened for a moment, then nodded.

"It's for you, General Shabra," the sergeant whispered, interrupting a drag on a cigar. "General Sachar, above the SIGNET CARVER operating area."

"Good. Thank you." Major-General Hebron Shabra, commander of Operations for MITHCENT, tapped the ashes of his Monte Cristo into the ashtray across from the scowling commander of the Israeli Defense Force.

"Andy, this is Hebron here. What's the status?"

"Fehu has interspersed themselves square in the middle of the battle line about twenty miles down from the coast," a scratchy, noisy response came crackling over the earpiece. "We've effectively stopped the advance of both sides. Until the Egyptians bring more artillery to the rear area or the Israelis start staging more air strikes, we're dug in and nobody is fighting anyone at the moment."

"Excellent. I take it the Commander wasn't happy about deploying the Arm Slaves?"

The other line only echoed with the hissing roar of jet engines in the background and a sigh. "Nobody is, Hebron," Sachar replied. "Nobody is happy about it."

Shabra nodded soberly. "Good. Keep me posted. Raikov is in Cairo right now presenting the situation to President Sadat, and I can't imagine he's happy about it either."

"Will do." With that, Sachar disconnected, and Shabra handed the receiver back to his radioman.

"So, in other words, General Abarov," Shabra began as he leaned forward over the oak conference table, "you will pull your forces back to their original locations as of August 15th and accede to existing treaty regulations. You will leave the wreckage removal to us. Your soldiers died in training accidents. Furthermore, I-"

"Furthermore, you and your mercenaries are a bunch of pests that I would love to crush right here and now!" The Israeli general pounded the table and got to his feet, looming over the MITHRIL officer. "These Arabs surround us on all sides, waiting for every single opportunity to push us into the sea that they can take, and only _now_ do your tin men come to fight them off! What's worse, you're killing _my men _in the process!" He lowered himself to look Shabra right in his dark-ringed eyes. "Where the _fuck_ were you in 1948? 1956? Huh? What about pushing the Heights in '67, holding the Suez defenses in '76?"

Shabra didn't respond, merely taking a drag on his cigar. Exhaling the smoke softly, away from the face of the Israeli, he stared right back at his counterpart. "Who's to say we weren't there?" Shabra responded cryptically. "Who's to say we didn't have our own Merkavas, painted with Stars of David, moving through the Gidi Pass? Were you at the Bar-Lev line to account for each and every one of your soldiers... _every_ single one?"

The Israeli held his ground as Shabra crushed out his cigar. "General, MITHRIL is not an adjunct of the Israeli Defense Force. We are not a division of the Egyptian Army. Nor are we under the command or influence of NATO, the Warsaw Pact; neither American nor Soviet bloc. My job is to make your job, my job, the job of every warrior obsolete. If by doing so, we must unveil the technology that you have only heard rumors and whispers about, so be it. If we must kill Israelis to do so, so be it. We are dedicated to stopping conflicts across the globe, General, not just in the Arab-Israeli conflict."

The air hung heavy with the acridly sweet scent of Cuban tobacco smoke and silence. The Israeli returned to his seat, glaring over the table at the MITHRIL general, not even acknowledging the aide that accompanied him with his portable phone.

A knock on the heavy oaken door interrupted the mutual game of stare-down chicken. "Go away!" the heavyset Israeli roared, just as the door burst open.

"Sir!" the frantic colonel rushing into the room yelled out. "There are more of them, attacking the new ones!"

**The Helmaj base**

Mark immediately slid between the intruder and the copilot's seat, grabbing the sandy-haired man in a quick headlock. Almost instantly, the man in Soviet pattern camouflage drove his elbow into Mark's stomach, weakening the tall black man's grasp long enough to slip out and throw him to the ground in a hip-toss.

Kenji was quick to back up his partner, thrusting a sharp open palm strike square at the man's temple, but the intruder parried his sharp right fist, almost anticipating Kenji's follow-up middle punch from the left. As they locked into a mutual parry, the man thrust his knee upwards towards Kenji's stomach. The MITHRIL agent quickly spun right, pulling the soldier's parry downward and away, forcing him down to the ground. Desperately, Kenji dropped down to press his knee into the soldier's neck. Not a moment too soon, the soldier rolled away and back to his feet, holding a fighting stance.

"#I'm not a Helmaj, and you don't seem like one either,#" the man said in Russian, right hand leading in a textbook CQC stance. "#I don't know if you understand me, but we can get out of here alive and well if we play our cards right.#"

"#Shit,#" Mark responded in very broken Russian, shuffling back to his feet and rubbing a sharp gash on his elbow. "#You had to saying hello like that?#"

"#Your pronunciation and grammar are terrible.#" Kalinin extended a hand to Mark, helping him back to his feet. "#Still, you're the first black man I've ever heard speaking Russian, let alone the first I've ever seen.#"

"#Hey, mister, slow down, I not great in Russian.#"

"Mark?" Kenji asked, an edge in his voice indicating that he had yet to trust the Russian.

Kalinin turned to the stocky Japanese MITHRIL agent. "Sorry my English so bad," he said, his voice brogued in a very heavy Russian accent. "They teach some at university. I am not Helmaj."

"So you're a Soviet soldier, then? Aren't you a bit far from Kabul?"

"I not Kabul, I 104th Spetsnaz. Konduz."

"Spetsnaz? Shit!" Mark hopped up onto the copilot's seat. "#Come on, let's getting out here! Soldiers coming into cargo area!#"

"_Da._ Quickly, Mr. Japanese, I follow your friend. We escape through way I come in and get off plane."

Kenji eyed the man. "Who's to say you won't throw us off the wing headfirst?"

"I have no means to gain trust, Mr. Japanese, but we go now and worry about that later, please. Now." Kalinin tore the unit patch off of his left sleeve without gusto, handing it over to Kenji. "Soviet citizen not know about existence of Spetsnaz. I abandon you, you survive, you go public and make big splash to superiors. Hurry!"

Mark had already clambered out and hissed at Kenji, low enough not to be heard by the soldiers: "Come on, man! We gotta get out of here! That radio's been wired to broadcast a distress signal! MITHRIL'll be here in eighteen hours!"

Kenji swore under his breath in Japanese . Saying no more, he waited for the Soviet to clamber out of the cockpit and followed him up. They closed the windscreen just as the cockpit door opened inwards.

**The Sinai**

"Fehu Three, move to the north and cover Six's retreat! Four, Five, cover our flanks! Move it, dammit, these things are _fast_!"

The rapid _thakathakathaka_ of the Arm Slaves' Boxer cannons, combined with the yellow flashes of phosphorous-based shell propellant, rocked the desert with a shadowing, unearthly thunderstorm in the pre-dawn darkness. McAllen desperately pulled himself out of the cockpit of his Patton, reaching for the emergency gear kit, and threw himself to the loose sand of the desert under the smoking hulk of his machine.

His ear protectors barely kept out the hammering explosions of shell impacts and Boxer fire. Still tapped into the MITHRIL frequency, he heard Fehu One frantically trying to coordinate a perimeter around the MITHRIL lines.

A crashing explosion threw up a pillar of sand yards from McAllen, lancing the thick, two-fingered arm off of his wrecked AS. The explosion was followed by a grinding chatter, the rapid firing of a 23mm cannon. "Six is out and pinned!" McAllen called out over the headset of his radio. "One of those things is through the perimeter!"

The cannon fire stopped as a rapid, mechanical pounding _thkwiss-thkwiss_ noise dashed past McAllen. McAllen swore at the thing under his breath as he slung a LAWS rocket launcher over his shoulder from the emergency kit.

The shadow that raced past him was squat-looking for a forty-foot mecha. Its legs were even more awkwardly placed, bent backwards at the joint like a bird's, and it had three large, reptilian-looking feet for stability. Its torso was egg-shaped, not angular like the Patton, and its head was barrel-shaped with two bright, sharp blue-colored 'eyes.'

_No doubts about whose that is,_ McAllen thought to himself, lining up the sights of his LAW on the advancing enemy Arm Slave's right side, centering on the red, white, and black bars of an Egyptian flag, hastily painted over what appeared to be a Soviet red star. _They didn't tell us we'd be seeing anything like our Pattons so soon._

"Two, watch your left flank!" McAllen barked into the radio. "One of the enemy machines has broken through to my eleven-o'clock!"

"Copy, Six. Stay where you are and hold tight. We're doing all we can for an egress."

"Egress, my ass!" McAllen yelled. "There's at least seven of those damn things running around! We have to punch through and get out of here!"

Another crashing _thkwiss_ threw up a cloud of sand a few feet away. McAllen turned, drawing his LAWS to bear before even thinking about it, depressing the wedge-shaped trigger on the topside of the weapon. The small rocket kicked out with an explosion of neutral gases as the main motor kicked on. Its warhead had barely armed before the LAWS lanced into the arm of the Egyptian AS, blowing a gaping hole in a shoulder joint. The arm of the mecha seized up, dropping its heavy cannon as the three thick fingers on the end of the arm flexed in and out, almost as if by reflex. A burst of Boxer fire brought the machine down, sparks emitting from the thick, rotund neck.

"Got one!" a voice crackled. "Fehu Three has the kill!"

"Confirmed!" another voice yelled over the radio. "One confirms! Now pull back! Regroup and form a perimeter around Si-"

McAllen tossed aside the spent LAWS and pulled out his last rocket, keeping it ready at his chest as he saw the rest of Fehu team's Pattons circle around him. All the while, they slowly walked backwards, dodging, dashing to the side, moving just like giants. The MITHRIL soldiers didn't even bother to wonder about what the Israeli and Egyptian armies were seeing.

A series of _spang_ noises echoed off the remains of McAllen's AS, and a burst of light over his shoulder caught his eye. He turned just in time to see a Patton explode, its torso welling out and bursting apart with the impact of an unseen assailaint.

"One is down!" someone exclaimed. "Fehu One is down! Negative on the pilot!"

"Calm down! Continue to regroup!"

"Regroup, my ass! We're gonna die out here! Those goddamn Soviet fakers are gonna round us up and kill us all!"

"Steiner! Get a hold of yourself! We've got a man on foot out there!"

"I don't care! We're gonna die!"

Just then, a hail of tracer rounds lanced across the sky, followed a few seconds later by the echoes of tank cannons firing.

"What the hell?" the radio crackled. Another explosion marked the fall of an Egyptian AS. "Who fired? Who was that!"

McAllen ventured a quick climb up his AS' shell to explore. There were four of the bulky Egyptian AS remaining, stunned by the attack from an unanticipated direction. Having swept in from the sea to the north, they had only anticipated the MITHRIL resistance from their occupied area. But not from a troop of Israeli tanks that had lagged behind as a rear-guard.

"Those Magachs and Merkavas are attacking the Egyptians!" Fehu Two called out, his voice steely, even with the surprise.

There were only eight tanks, a small platoon, but they were moving westward, not a few kilometers away, firing as fast as they could draw a bead on the Egyptian mecha. Seeing the flag was all it took for the IDF tanks to charge off, and as the Egyptian Arm Slaves redeployed in a wider line to meet them, they were pinned between advancing Israelis and defiladed MITHRIL AS units. It was only a matter of seconds before they were cut down.

"You okay, McAllen?" The pilot of Fehu Two, Sergeant Major Thabu Tkomo, a tall, thin Kenyan agent, leapt out of his AS as the others moved to cover them.

"Just scrapes and bruises, maybe a few burns." McAllen pulled off his leather gloves and checked his face. "I'll probably have to even my mustache out when we get back," he joked as their radios crackled.

"Fehu team, this is Morgoth. Give me a status update," Sachar's concerned voice ordered.

"Fehu Two here. One is down. I have assumed command. We have Fehu Six's Patton down and non-op. We are preparing to destroy the unit. We encountered resistance from seven Arm Slaves with Egyptian flags. We managed to take down two before an Israeli armored platoon started shooting at them. Following that, we wiped out the Egyptian ASes."

The line was silent for a moment. "Fehu Two, confirm that an Israeli platoon was on the scene of the battle?"

"That's correct, sir. Eight Israeli tanks. They'll be at our position in a minute or two."

"Fehu Two, you are ordered to immediately destroy the Israeli tanks and egress to the south for pickup at point Zulu."

"_What!_"

"Confirm the order, Sergeant Major," Sachar repeated, devoid of any emotion.

Tkomo grit his teeth for a moment. "McAllen, get in my machine. It's too dangerous to carry you."

"Sarge, those guys saved our asses."

"They saved nobody's asses, McAllen. Nobody was here to save. Some Egyptian units that went too far east attacked those Israelis. Everyone else on the scene was eradicated and should have had orders to pull back when we got here. You get me?"

"Dammit, Sergeant, we're here to stop wars, not kill people!"

"We did one to get to the other, McAllen! We have our orders! We blew the shit out of both sides not too long ago, so don't try to play moral high ground with me! This is MITHRIL! You're damn right we're here to stop wars! We just stopped one, and now we're getting out of Dodge!"

McAllen clenched his hands into fists, then turned and pounded his balled-up right hand onto Tkomo's AS.

"Fehu Two, wilco. Proceeding on orders. Three, Four, wait for McAllen and I to arm up before we move out."

"Three, roger."

"Four, copy."

"We owe them, Sarge."

"I know, McAllen. I know."

John McAllen, a few months shy of twenty-three, made his way up the kneeling Patton and thought about the recruiter that had contacted him shortly after coming out of Officer Candidate School.

"See the world, make lots of money," McAllen mused to himself, rubbing a scrape on his arm, probably from a shell fragment. "Maybe I'm the lucky one here to come out alive, but no peace is worth killing those who'd help us."

"We're here for all forms of peace, McAllen," Tkomo said as he climbed into the cockpit and adjusted into his seat. The gas turbine engine came back to life, quickly kicking power into the AS' systems. The Patton's canopy covers locked into place, covering the chest area where the pilot sat, as its arms brought the heavy Boxer cannon to bear.

"MITHRIL is the interceptor of international conflict," Tkomo growled, gritting his teeth as he worked the right and left control sticks to bring the weapon to bear. It quickly drew a bead on the lead Merkava tank, centering on the chest of the Israeli officer who had stepped partially out of the turret. The confused man saw the weapon pointed at him and looked nervous, almost comical, in the middle of waving to the MITHRIL agents. "If it stops all-out war, if it'll save enough lives, we go in to make whatever sacrifices are necessary. Save the innocents. End the need for soldiers. Even if it means blowing away some fools who couldn't run when they got the orders to do so."

**To be continued...**

**Afterword/Glossary:**

**CQC:** Close-Quarters Combat. Adopted from Metal Gear Solid 3, this fighting style is a combination of judo, aikido, and karate that is focused on rapidly ending a fight after disarming one's opponent. The basic stance is the stronger leg pointing forward (whichever leg the CQC user is more comfortable with) and the weaker leg pointed at a 90-degree angle, facing the front side of the torso, much like a basic fencing or karate stance. The strong hand faces forward and is held at a 45-degree angle facing the front of the body, and the weaker hand usually follows up the movements of the strong hand. CQC is a little hard to describe in text, but it's basically aikido with more of a combat purpose.


	16. Between the Idea and the Reality

**A/N:** I'm going to try and step things up so that the final chapter ofThe Hollow Men will be posted on the same day to the year that it was originally posted.

As in the last chapter, foreign languages will be presented between #s. I reiterate: I couldn't make any other special characters work because of restrictions on them. Not even asterisks worked for some reason. This will go for Helmaj, Russian, Japanese, etc.

Of course, thanks go out to my beta team for their effort... I threw chapters 14 and 15 out in rapid succession, written in less than a week, and I still got some quality reviews. The main page of has announced that they'll roll out a beta reader area of the site, and I can only hope that reviewers of their caliber will be available to everyone. :-) Just a word of advice, the brief interlude at the end is completely un-betaed. I really wanted to roll this out and thus I didn't run it past the team. Sorry, guys. :-/

Other than that, nothing much is new...

On with the show!

* * *

"**The Hollow Men" by T.S. Eliot, fifth canto, first five stanzas**

"Here we go round the prickly pear  
Prickly pear prickly pear  
Here we go round the prickly pear  
At five o'clock in the morning.

Between the idea  
And the reality  
Between the motion  
And the act  
Falls the Shadow

For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception  
And the creation  
Between the emotion  
And the response  
Falls the Shadow

Life is very long

Between the desire  
And the spasm  
Between the potency  
And the existence  
Between the essence  
And the descent  
Falls the Shadow  
For Thine is the Kingdom

For Thine is  
Life is  
For Thine is the-"

* * *

**_15: Between the Idea and the Reality__

* * *

_** **The Helmaj base  
****3:37 PM**

"So what do we do now?" Kenji asked the Soviet soldier as they lay prone on the roof of the Antonov, skin burning from the heat of the metal fuselage.

"We wait," the man gruffly responded, crawling a few steps forward, towards the tail of the plane. "We wait until Helmaj spread out."

"Helmaj, huh?" Mark turned to his partner, trying to keep his afro out of the enemy's view. "I shoulda thought the _mudjehedeen_ wouldn't have jacked a cargo plane and flown to the Sinai for a social call."

"Sinai?" The Russian turned around. "You come from Sinai?"

Kenji ignored the question. "We're going to have to make a break for it soon. If you played things right, Mark, we've got twelve hours before MITHRIL is swarming all over this place."

"'Meat rail?'" the Russian quizzically asked, not understanding the foreign word. "What is meat rail?"

"Agreed, but something is going on here, Kenji. We're no closer to finding out where the hell this sucker came from, but we still haven't figured out what the hell got us here. We ain't even sure where 'here' is. From the looks of it, though, something tells us we're not in the deserts of Kansas anymore."

"Is meat rail part of CIA?" The Russian's interest was piqued. "Secret plan name?"

Kenji turned to the soldier. "Listen, you'd better forget we said anything. I don't know who you are, but we are not CIA, we are not Americans, and it seems like you're as out of place as we are."

The Russian stared back at Kenji. "My name is Andrei Sergeivich Kalinin, Second Lieutenant, 104th Spetsnaz. My unit was captured by these Helmaj. I try to send distress signal, but you take aircraft radio before I do; you now transmitting, yes?"

"Our people will hear the code signal."

"Radio-intercept stations are located at Konduz, several hours away. Soviet forces hear beacon too and come."

"Konduz?" Kenji thought for a moment. "We're in Afghanistan?"

"Far northeast of country under Helmaj control. Maybe parts of China and Pakistan too. Remote areas, not under Soviet or government control."

"Dammit!" Kenji tried to swear as quietly as he could without alerting anyone nearby. He lowered his voice before he could shout in anger. "So much for any help from MITHRIL."

"Soviet forces will be here soon," Kalinin narrowed his eyes. "Three hours' flying time in helicopter. I must return to my men. What will you do?"

Kenji crawled towards Mark. "Look, if we can, we should work with him," Mark reasoned. "There's more than this one, apparently, and – "

"Wait!" Kenji held up a hand. "Something's going on down there."

Kalinin had seen it too. First one, then another, then entire throngs of soldiers had appeared out of nowhere and rushed onto the sandy flats where the plane had landed. Shouts were thrown back and forth in numerous languages.

"'He is returning?'" Kalinin ventured after picking up a few words in Russian.

"#Is it true? Helmajin Helmaj is coming back after all these years?#"

"#The last time he came... the last time he came, he dispatched the previous one with a single blow. I remember it like it was yesterday.#"

"#It's just like we were told... it's been too long, but –#"

"#Stand to attention! Helmajin Helmaj has return to Helmajin Shartash, the ancestral home of the Helmaj!#" Kalinin recognized the voice and saw Majid jogging towards the tail of the aircraft, his men forming into sharp, military-style rank and file.

Unceremoniously and with the clunking sounds of a dying transmission coupled to a roaring diesel truck engine, the old Opel bounded across the sandy flats of the far northeastern Afghan turf.

"Looks like they got the call," Richard Sonoma remarked, throttling the engine to a stop slowly, letting the gearbox do most of the braking. He didn't want to lock the wheels on the sands of the flat.

"So these are the Helmaj," Kiriko noted approvingly. "They look just as ragtag as you told me they would."

"Kiriko, dear, there's no superior group of warriors in the world," Sonoma said approvingly, pulling the parking break as the Opel came to a halt in front of the ranks, just shy of the Antonov's tail. The men didn't break ranks, and if anyone blinked dust from their eyes, he couldn't tell.

"What about the Soviets? Won't they notice the Scimitar?"

"Not until we take the fight to them. Besides, we still have the Snowdrift."

With that, Sonoma opened the door of the truck, and with a quick spin to the right, he grabbed a handhold and scrambled his way up to the roof of the truck.

"#Helmajin Helmaj has returned!#" Majid announced in a barking, martial voice. "#All will heed his words until the clarion call of Khau'ron Helmaj is sounded!#"

Sonoma's expression didn't change as he surveyed the soldiers. Just shy of a few thousand, their ranks ebbing and flowing as new Helmaj came and old ones left, never to return, some showed fresh scars of battle against Soviet helicopters and the stolen RPGs of the _mudjehedeen_. They were a group pockmarked with ethnicities, nationalities, religions or irreligions, hair, skin, eyes, and it was hard to find two of the men – or women – who were from the same prefecture, state, or area.

"#Helmaj, you have waited years for my return without question,#" Sonoma began, speaking without the aid of a bullhorn or loudspeaker. "#You have fought the Soviets, the Chinese, the Pakistanis, the Afghans, the _mudje,_ all without showing mercy or quarter. You have fought, died, and suffered in these hills and sands for years. You have swollen our ranks to numbers unseen since the Helmaj of ages beyond. You have brought new ideas, new tactics, new weapons, new power. You have lived your lives to the rallying cry we have heralded for thousands upon thousands of years:# _Helmajin tarook!_"

The assembled Helmaj responded, in unison, belting out in response: "_Helmajin tarook!"_

"#I have shown my face to you only twice since I claimed my place as Helmajin Helmaj,#" he continued, "#rightfully defeating the one who stood before me in single combat. I have proved my strength to lead you, thus claiming that I am the strongest Helmajin Helmaj to ever stand before the entirety of the Helmaj. If anyone believes they are the next Helmajin Helmaj, you may now step forward and prove your worth to unseat me and claim your destiny.#"

"Sounds like some kinda briefing," Mark mumbled. "Hey, Kenji, quit daydreamin'! Just because you don't understand this sucker's language either doesn't mean you oughta space out!"

"Sorry, but... I can't shake this. Something feels... something feels very wrong."

"#Nobody will come forth?#"

"I... I remember that voice."

"#Then with no protests, will you follow me into the fires of hell, into the ice of the mountain tops; will you march to your deaths in the name of the Helmaj?#"

"_Helmajin tarook!"_

"#Will you follow my orders knowing that you are not entitled to know my plans, solely living at the will of Helmajin Helmaj?#"

"_Helmajin tarook!"_

"#Will you fight and die, giving no quarter, giving no mercy, and taking no prisoners, to fulfill the clarion call of Khau'ron Helmaj?#"

"_Helmajin tarook!"_

"#Helmaj! Know that your deeds within the next twenty-four hours will bring about the rise of our people! Know that here will mark the beginning of a new era for our people! Know that now marks the beginning of our rise! Know that you will raise yourselves to prominence!#"

He raised his left arm, as if presenting the tarpaulin-covered cargo container on the back of his Opel. "#Here is what will lead the new era. Not just for the Helmaj, but for the entire world. Less than a hundred sets of human eyes have seen these new weapons, and both of the great powers hide them from each other. This is a weapon that was developed with knowledge far ahead of that from any human. I have seen it rise from the ground up, become a technology that literally stands on its own.#"

Richard looked behind him and nodded. Kiriko returned his nod, and she jogged around to the rear of the Opel, unlocking the deadbolt lock on the cargo container. With creaks of un-oiled metal joints, she pulled open the four jointed bolts on the container door and hopped into it.

"#Helmaj! This is the weapon that we will use to conquer and secure our lands! This is what they call an Arm Slave!#"

The cargo container, and then the entire Opel, started to vibrate as a loud, whirring drone spun up. After not even ten seconds, the cargo container burst open from the top, its rugged metal lining breaking like tinfoil. A huge mechanical hand lifted Sonoma up a few feet, then continued lifting him forward as the machine came to a full stand. The hawk-like head of the unit had two brightly-lit blue optical sensors, drawing a futuristic look to the top of its egg-shaped torso.

"What in the devil... it's the same as in the photograph from back at the base!" Kalinin reached into his coveralls, pulling out the crumpled old photo. It had retained its appearance from folding and unfolding, and when the machine stood, lifting the man in its open metal palm, Kalinin got a full-on profile of the man. "That's him... and that's the machine in the photograph, too!"

"Hell..." Mark let out a low whistle, trying not to move. They were just a glance over the man's shoulder, dead meat for sure, if anyone made a move. "Looks like that's what we're up against, huh, Kenji?"

Mark turned to his partner, but the calm, evaluative eyes of Kenji Moriyama had turned narrow, shooting flames at the man being held up by the mecha.

"That man..." Kenji seethed, his knuckles white, hangs clasping tightly down on the leading edge of the wing. "That man is the one who killed my parents. That man is NAPA VALLEY."

"Kenji, keep it down, man!"

"No."

"_I hate this," he said. "I hate doing this. But this is how we make progress... this is how things are done for the greater good."_

_I've waited to tell him this for years... nine years now. For nine years, the only reason I trained myself to fight...joined the SDF... then MITHRIL... was to kill that man..._

"He may have been MITHRIL's best agent," Kenji growled, standing up. "But he's not walking away from here alive."

"Kenji! Get _down,_ man! You gonna get us killed!" Mark reached over to Kenji to grab his partner, but the Soviet soldier beside him stayed the agent's hand.

"We must get away. Your friend will be captured, and so will you if you go after him."

"You fuckin' commie, that's my _partner_ there! My _tovarisch_, nyet?"

"#Hey! Who's that on the airplane? Someone stop him!#"

Mark's last pull towards Kenji was held fast by Kalinin; the Soviet commando put the taller man in an armlock. With a mighty heave, Kalinin shifted his weight to slide down the side of the Antonov, landing hard, but on his feet, tumbling under Mark's weight.

"You would be captured with your friend?" Kalinin asked. "We use confusion, gather my men, and escape. Come!"

"Shit, man, that hurt!" Mark picked himself up from the ground, following the Spetsnaz, already at a dead run.

Kenji dashed across the Antonov's broad, flat wing, oblivious to the shouts from below. It didn't take him more than a few seconds to reach the wingtip and leap with all his might.

"YOU KILLED THEM!"

Richard Sonoma saw the blur of movement out of the corner of his eye, turning to look just as the five-foot-six form of Kenji Moriyama came flying through the air at him.

**MITHPAC Headquarters  
****Sydney, Australia  
****March 15th, 1978**

The new recruit had leapt at the instructor with no warning.

"You _bastard!_" The small ex-SDF soldier had a previously unseen ferocity for his frame, a modest height for a Japanese man balanced by an impressive, muscular countenance; he had thrown it at the tall, thin martial arts instructor.

He landed one, two, three strong blows to the man's face and chest before the other recruits dragged him off by the lapels of his practice uniform.

"I remember you!" He yelled as he was pulled off and hauled down to the mats, held down by three other MITHRIL recruits. "You were there! You were at the airport! I'll KILL you!"

"What's gotten into him?" the junior instructor, a fourth-_dan_ in jiu jutsu, wondered aloud as the man was hauled out, a base security officer waiting outside the door of the judo. "I'm surprised he even got close enough to lay a hand on you."

NAPA VALLEY accepted the man's hand, bringing himself up to his feet. "Guess I wasn't expecting such a promising recruit," he lied quite convincingly, rubbing a particularly nasty-looking bruise on his temple. "Where'd we pick him up?"

"Let me check. The rest of you, start warming up! Thirty laps around the dojo!"

The class of twenty recruits barked out a sharp "Yes, sir!" and started their run.

"Kenji Moriyama, age twenty-two. He's career SDF, joined up by faking his age. We nailed him just before he was to be bumped to a full Master Sergeant. National Defense Academy grad, class of '74, top in his class. He made the Nationals in competitive judo and he's at instructor level for a lot of other martial arts. He shows some aptitude for clandestine service, judging from how he got the drop on our recruiter when he started to tail the guy."

"Seems like he's pretty skilled."

"He made the Olympic prequalifications in judo as a child, but he got caught up in the crossfire at Lod Airport. I heard that we were involved in it."

"Yeah. Operation BLAZING TIGER. We nailed the leader of the Japanese Red Army there, but it took an infiltration to get in that deep. I should know. After all, I was the one that infiltrated the group."

"Really?" The junior instructor started stretching his arms. "That must have been really dicey."

"The worst part was at Lod Airport. Like I said... I was the one that infiltrated the JRA."

The instructor froze. "So that's why he was so angry at you..."

NAPA VALLEY nodded grimly. "After all, I'm the man who killed his parents."

**To be continued...**


	17. Interlude: The Thin Red Line

**A/N:** Long time since I updated, and the document preview thing ate my nicely detailed A/N. -- Long story short, I got injured and missed Christmas (Doesn't matter, since I'm an atheist and we celebrate Festivus at my place), my girlfriend and I went on vacation, and then I decided that I needed to submit this un-beta'ed chapter.

On with the show!

* * *

**_16: Interlude – The Thin Red Line

* * *

_The Helmaj base **

"I probably already know what you're thinking."

Kenji strained his hands apart, trying to reach the lock on the chains they had wrapped around his wrists. He could barely move, and if he could, the chains around his elbows wouldn't easily be budged.

NAPA VALLEY opened the tent flap, ducking in and pulling up a metal folding chair to sit across from Kenji; his hands were neatly folded in his lap, a look of concern – almost sadness – across his face.

"You aren't the only one I've run into like this. It's been in all manner of places. Would you believe that someone recognized me in St. Helena? The middle of wine country?Kiriko and I – oh, Kiriko is my wife, by the way; she's the one who batted you out of mid-air the Scimitar – we were eating at this wonderful little neighborhood restaurant, the kind of place that tourists haven't discovered yet, with a bottle of a nice Shiraz, and the waiter said he recognized me. A smart kid, a UCLA student working in the Valley for the summer. He had a photographic memory and remembered me from the Munich Olympics rescue mission. I was at Furstenfeldbruck, disguised as one of the German helicopter crews. By the time those idiot snipers started opening fire, Black September had already killed the entire Israeli team."

_Amusing anecdote, you son of a bitch..._

"It's the same story everywhere," NAPA mused. "The failed rescue of Patty Hearst from the Symbionese Liberation Army, planting explosive charges on Egyptian SAM sites just before the balloon went up on the '73 war... you probably didn't know about _that_ little MITHRIL op, otherwise there wouldn't be any more Israel. Of course, they probably told you about REFUSENIK, the Berlin Airlift, the lateliberation of concentration camps... all of those were failed MITHRIL operations. Somewhere, somehow, I ran into someone who wanted me dead for each of those, for my role in the failure. You win some, you lose some. This time, though... you're the first person who wanted me dead for a _successful_ MITHRIL op."

"What the hell do you mean?" Kenji growled, finally responding after so much silence. He clenched his teeth together, feeling the blood in his mouth from when he bit the inside of his cheek after the Scimitar's metal fist almost crushed him.

"The Lod Airport massacre, right?" NAPA leaned forward, smiling sympathetically. "I have a photographic memory, too." He tapped his head. "An old injury. Whatever happened shook up my neurons pretty spectacularly. Anyway, you've grown up a great deal since you had blood and tears on your face. No child should've gone through what you did."

"Then how was that a _success!_" Kenji screamed, trying to come to his feet. The chains around his ankles jangled as he tried to move, the wrist chains held in place with a thick lash of hempen rope bound to his ankle chains. "You personally shot ten people! I saw it with my own two eyes!"

"Yeah, I shot twelve, actually," NAPA leaned back, his mood suddenly turning somber. "One in the lower right quarter of the torso, a man in a gray business suit coming out of gate 44B. Another also in the head, an older woman, late forties, looked like she was French, maybe. Three schoolchildren in the chest. Four airport security officers in the stomach. The rest I shot in the back, so I didn't see the impacts. Two of those had to have been your parents. I didn't count Kozo Okamoto. I wish I had killed him, but MITHRIL needed someone captured from this ordeal. One of the others killed himself with a grenade, and airport security got the other one."

"You think that absolves you? You think that because you shot one terrorist, because he's rotting in jail, you don't have to answer for all those innocent people?"

"No, it doesn't absolve me. You're absolutely right: I am directly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of people, and as Helmajin Helmaj, I've lost count of all the Soviet soldiers and _mudjehedeen_ guerillas that have been killed by the people I command."

"Then I don't suppose I could convince you to let me out of these chains and avenge them by crushing your windpipe."

"No, you couldn't. I have too much I have to do."

"Oh, and what is that? Do you have some babies you need to slaughter? Do you have to pour acid in the wounds of hospital patients?"

NAPA VALLEY stood up, clasped his hands behind his back, and looked out the open tent flap. "No," he replied calmly. "I have to end the need for people like me, and then end my own life."

"I like that last part, you son of a bitch."

"I expected you to. A lot of other people are expecting that of me. They've been doing it for some time now. I do plan to put a gun to my head and pull the trigger, because nobody else will do it for me... or without me wanting to die."

"Oh, please. You may be NAPA VALLEY, but you're a mortal man like the rest of us."

"A mortal man, eh?" NAPA turned towards Kenji, smiling. "How old do I look to you?"

"Like a six-week old shit pile left out in the sun."

"You're not as polite and calm as you look, you know. The Kenji Moriyama I've been told about was a lot more level-headed."

NAPA sat back down. "This is 1981, right? That would put me square at eighty years old."

Kenji didn't say anything, covering up his surprise with an angry stare.

"I look like I'm in my forties because my body stopped aging a long time ago."

**Terezin, Czech Republic  
****May 7th, 1945**

"#The Red Cross doctors had just come around the block of the ghetto,#" the Russian soldier yelled over the din of gunfire. "#They were ambushed by a contingent of SS troopers who hadn't evacuated. Bastards had holed up in that house over there.#"

"Dammit," First Lieutenant Richard Sonoma swore, picking up his heavy Browning Automatic Rifle. The other soldier, a buck private with the Soviet 105th Guards Rifle Regiment, Zhukov's "Red Lightning" division, had rushed back from the siege despite a superficial wound to his face. "#Go see a corpsman,#" he shouted to the soldier in Russian. "#You four, come with me!#"

The troops obeyed without question, their platoon commander already having instructed them to follow the orders of the Allies' liaison officer. He had fought with them from the trenches around Moscow straight down to the Czech Republic, and they knew that he was worth his word.

He led them at a solid run, their weaponsloaded and at the ready, through the crumbling refuse that was the Terezinstadt ghetto. Richard didn't have time to consider whether the SS had deliberately damaged the buildings to make life harder on the thousands of Jews who had been confined there, if Allied bombing raids fromcaptured Italian airfirledshad targeted the place, or whether they were simply old. Crumbled remains of shingles, bricks, and mortar were scattered haphazardly throughout the street, concrete leaves scattered by the winds of war.

"#Around the corner, past the alley!#" a Soviet private yelled, and Richard stopped short of dashing out through. "#Seven SS are in the building!#"

Quickly, Sonoma dipped low to one knee, leaned around the side of the brick building, and fired a burst from his BAR. "#Now there's five,#" he said in his accented Russian as bullets impacted on the other side of his impromptu defilade. "#Bromkovsky, Petrov, I'll cover you. Move along the side of this building and advance to the next short block. Kovsky, Alexandrov, advance across the plaza to the rubble pile across the way. I'll dash up the center after ten seconds. Lay down cover fire and I'll advance up to Petrov's group. We'll draw their fire and you take their flank. Bromkovsky, Petrov, what the hell are you waiting for?#"

"_Da, tovarisch leytenant!_"

Sonoma dipped to the side again, bracing his BAR and letting loose on full automatic. He saw four German helmets dip low inside the building as the gun kicked out spent .30-caliber rounds, obscuring the alley in bursts of dust and fragmented bricks. The two Soviets dashed out, running under the covering stream of bullets, and quickly ducked behind cover; they quickly opened fire on the German position with their PPSh submachine guns.

"GO! GO!" Sonoma screamed, ducking behind the building to swap magazines. The other two soldiers advanced methodically, firing on the run to panic the Germans.

It was over in less than two minutes. The SS troops were encircled, and despite their dug-in position, it wasn't long before Sonoma and his soldiers had managed to get right under the Germans. Two of their number resisted and were subsequently outflanked and shot by Sonoma and his troops, and calls of "Wir übergeben!" – "We surrender!" – quickly came from two others.

"#There were seven of you,#" Sonoma barked in German at the two prisoners, hands over their heads, and held at gunpoint by Petrov and Bromkovsky. "#Four were killed. Where's the third survivor?#"

"#He ran off to the town square with the hostages. To the train station, I think.#"

"#How many hostages?#"

"#Nine local _juden._#"

"#Guard these two. Kovsky, Alexandrov, come with me! We'll go through the alleys and head him off!#"

* * *

"#Back off!#"

The ambush had been sprung expertly on the German, and all but one of the hostages, all frightened, sickly Jews who had been confined to the ghetto, and later the Terezin concentration camp,had fled as soon as the Soviets had fired warning shots. All but one, whom the SS trooper had pistol-whipped with the butt of his Mauser and commenced to hold at the point of the rifle's bayonet.

"#Drop the weapon and put your hands up!#" Sonoma shouted in Russian by reflex. "#You are advised to surrender and you will be treated fairly under the Geneva Conventions! That man has nothing to do with this war, he is a civilian!#"

"#Back off or I will slaughter him right now!#"

"Shit. #Drop your gun and let him go!#" Sonoma shouted in Czech, one of the few phrases he had memorized. "#Boris, back your men away!#" he continued in Russian.

"#Sniper!#" one of his soldiers called out. "#Sniper in that warehouse!#"

There was a long, tearing _craaack_ sound: two rifles firing at once. A Soviet PPSh burst struck the SS soldier, and another Soviet rifle round lanced up at the sniper, beyond Sonoma's field of view.

"No!" He threw his BAR aside and broke out in a desperate run, moments too late: the German soldier had made one last desperate thrust at his hostage. The Jew – a young man, looking like he was still in his twenties – grasped at his lacerated throat, streams of dark red blood forming a macabre splash against his tattered garments.

"NO!"

There was a single, final _crack_ as another rifle fired, but Sonoma never heard it. The single bullet struck him square in the forehead as he ran towards the falling Jewish man, throwing him backwards. There was a final burst of PPSh fire, and as he fell, Sonoma saw, out of the corner of his fading vision, two of his men rushing towards the warehouse. Another set of boots was racing towards him, but before his head hit the cobblestone pavement, everything faded to black.

* * *

"Can you hear me, Lieutenant Sonoma?"

_Everything is still dark..._

"Raise your right hand if you can hear me."

_It's still there... am I alive?_

"Good, good. How do you feel?"

"Like there's cotton in my mouth."

"You, get him some water. We had to intubate you. You have been unconscious for the past seven days."

"Sniper... what about Terezin? That man..."

"Do not worry about Terezin. The main force of the 105th has arrived. You are at a field hospital not far from an Allied encampment outside Berlin. You are alive and you will continue to be alive."

"What happened?"

"Untie his bandages. Lieutenant, you were shot in the head and thefive percent of thebullet we couldn't removeis still partially embedded in your brain. You have damage to critical parts of your brain itself, but what has not been destroyed should still be functional."

"Doesn't hurt..."

"It shouldn't. The brain itselfcan't feel pain, and the nerve receptors on your forehead were severed beyond repair."

"So what's going to happen to me?"

As an orderly pulled the gauze bandages from around his head, Richard Sonoma blinked away the light of the medical tent. His eyes were met by those of a grizzled, unshaven regimental surgeon, with a man in an unfamiliar tan uniform standing next to him.

"As of right now, we're not sure what to do with you," the surgeon said, making notes on a clipboard. "But this gentleman here would like to have a word with you."

"Mmm."

Without another word, the surgeon moved down a few beds to make notes on another injured soldier.

"Richard Sonoma, first lieutenant, United States Army, serial number 212-21-44310, assigned as Allied liaison officer to the 105th Soviet Guards Rifle Division," the man in the tan uniform read off. "Date of birth unknown. Public records begin with your name being entered into Army ranks on May 9th, 1917."

"Too much George Cohan music was playing for a kid like me," Sonoma groaned. "Dammit, do they have any aspirin in this tent?"

"Why did you enlist in the Expeditionary Force during the First World War?"

"Like I said, I was a kid. Stupid. Impressionable. Grew up the son of an immigranton a vineyard in California and I'd probably die there, too. I lied about my age and used a fake name. That's what they call me now."

"So you've fought in both world wars?"

"Yeah. Pershing didn't know anything about fighting a war. It's a miracle I survived the first one and an even bigger miracle that I stuck around in the Army just before the Depression."

"Lieutenant Sonoma, they didn't tell you what happened to you just now."

"I guess you're about to, huh?"

The officer leaned forward. "Lieutenant, the bullet you took did two things: first, it lanced straight through your forehead, effectively bisecting a path between the frontal lobes of your left and right brain. Part of the lobes that was severed was a neural cluster that connects your left and right brain, effectively severing contact between the two. You have two brains: one optimally creative, the other coldly logical, completely free of collusion. Your memories are now completely isolated and independent, and you'll probably acquire eidetic traits. You're apsychiatric experiment in progress as we speak."

"I guess that thing #2 is the good news?" An orderly brought over a bottle of aspirin pills and a canteen of water. Sonoma availed himself of both, wishing he had some of the homebrew vodka that the Soviets carried with them. _Anything to kill this headache..._

"The bullet destroyed a significant chunk of your pituitary gland. The medics' initial evaluation is that it might have taken out your growth center. It is likely that your body will never age, and in theory, you will never experience natural death. God only knows what else happened to your mind."

Sonoma brought himself to sit up against the rusting metal medical bed. "I'll... never die?"

"I am from an organization that is not affiliated with eitherthe Axis or the Allies," the officer continued, pulling an envelope out of the breast pocket of his uniform. "The doctor we just spoke with signed off on your medical discharge papers. You're out of the Army as of today. No need for a soldier with a severe head injury. You haven't been out of uniform since you were sixteen years old. You've seen the waste of humanity, the suffering, the pain of war across the globe. You were part of the end of the old world order. If you think that war will end with this conflict, you'd be dead wrong."

"I'm a soldier. I went where I was ordered."

"You won't be a soldier anymore unless it's with us, Lieutenant Sonoma," the man in the uniform leaned forward, dropping the manila envelope on Sonoma's lap. "The war in Europe is over. Hitler shot himself a week ago. The Soviets are liberating German death camps, and from what I've been told, they make Terezinstadt look like a walk in the park. If you want to stop all wars – not just the ones your country fights – you'd do well to ask me about who we are."

* * *

**The Helmaj base  
September 11th, 1981**

"My heart bleeds for your injury and joining MITHRIL," Kenji seethed. "Makes me wish the Germans were sharper shooters."

"They're sharp enough," Sonoma tapped his forehead. "The surgeonsput a metal plate in my head to hold everything together. That's Deutschland efficiency for you."

"Then why the hell are you here if MITHRIL was so damn kind to you?"

"I should actually thank you for that. It's mostly because of the Lod Airport operation."

"What the hell do you mean? Something about killing innocent people finally got to you, huh?"

NAPA VALLEY shook his head. "Only mostly. I hate killing innocent people, but it's the classic justification: the sacrifice of few to save the many. Maybe it's that logical half of the brain taking over, but I think that it'd be worse to have let the Japanese Red Army keep shooting up that terminal. I had infiltrated enough to convince them to let me in on the raid, and when the time came, I took down the guy in charge. The others were a little bit more... driven. No, it was the Scimitar that drew me away."

"I'm surprised. I thought you'd hand something like that over to MITHRIL."

"You'd think that, but do you remember the woman who was with me? She was the one who – "

NAPA's explanation was interrupted by a shout from the distance. "Soviets!" the shout came, repeating itself in other languages. "Soviet helicopters have lifted off from Konduz! Their front-line forces are moving east from Shamwaz! The Soviets are coming! The Soviets are coming!"

"Damn." NAPA VALLEY jumped to his feet and quickly walked out of the tent. Around him, Helmaj swarmed out towards the scrub flats, their marshaling area, as the Antonov started up its engines to taxi out of the way. "#Majid! Where are you?#"

"#I am here,#" Majid replied, his relaxed demeanor broken by a steely calm. "#We have moved the Scimitar to the cave and it is being prepared.#"

"#What about Kiriko?#"

"#She borrowed a set of tools and went into the cave. I assume she is going to make minor repairs to the Scimitar.#"

Majid's explanation was cut short by a loud _THAKSSS-THAKSSS_ sound coming from a cave complex at the mouth of the Helmaj base. The Scimitar trod slowly, purposefully, towards the cargo container that had been disgorged from the Antonov, now astride the dead Opel truck. With a ponderous, smooth motion, the Arm Slave lifted the cargo container and slung it over its shoulder.

"Richie, I've got the components," a field radio crackled from NAPA VALLEY's back pocket. "I heard that a scout just came back. Bad news?"

"Yeah, they got the beacon triggered in the Antonov. Figure three hours' flight time with ground forces advancing in about five."

"Okay, I should be good with the Scimitar until then."

"Good. I'm on my way to help you."

"Oh, no you don't!" the voice on the radio said back, teasingly. "I'm a big girl. Leave this to me. You go prepare the defenses. Kiriko out."

Sonoma looked back through the tent at Kenji. "I'm going to have one of my men fly you out of here in the Antonov," he explained. "There should be a MITHPAC safe house back in Karachi. If you see Sachar, tell him that his toys won't save anyone unless he shuts down the toymakers."

Majid was still waiting for NAPA VALLEY outside of the tent; both men ignored the shouted threats from the captured MITHRIL agent. "We received a runner from the west slightly before your arrival. He delivered the briefcase."

"Good. Dispatch it to our fastest horseman. He's to rest until the battle commences."

"Understood. Will you be taking out the Scimitar?"

"No. Once Kiriko starts working on something, she doesn't stop. I'm not getting into that Arm Slave until she clears it for combat. I'm going to the front. If we can't lure in the Soviets effectively, this entire operation will be for naught."

Majid walked with Sonoma to the craggy slopes of the valley, taking a few steps up onto an ancient boulder. Below them, the thousands of Helmaj swarmed from tents to hastily-constructed shacks and old Quonset huts, gathering weapons and preparing positions. Holes were dug for defilades, traps, and tunnels. Rocks were arranged to stop tanks and APCs. The little vegetation that grew in the valley was cut down for camouflage.

"I think it's about time that I gave this to you," Richard spoke, reaching into the pocket of his parched sand-camouflage field jacket. He withdrew a dagger, its hilt and scabbard clad in gold and worn gems. "It belonged to your father."

Majid held up a hand. "I have no right to that dagger. Each Helmaj has their own, handed down from those before him, and they are borne only when they are ready to give their life back to Khau'ron Helmaj. That dagger is yours, Helmajin Helmaj."

Sonoma looked down at the Helmaj dagger. "Majid, this belonged to your father," he intoned, all emotion drained from his voice. "I had to kill him in order to take his position. This should have been passed down to you when he died."

Majid pushed back the proffered dagger. "The dagger of a Helmaj is his bloodline. It is the significance of being a Helmaj. It is earned, never given, and it is earned only through battle. It is the last thing seen before a Helmaj either triumphs over all odds or dies in the attempt. We only pry these daggers from the throats of the conquered or the hands of the fallen. As you took this from the neck of my father, who was Helmajin Helmaj before you, so shall we retrieve this either from your death or your triumph."

"'With your shield or on it,'" Sonoma quipped, letting a rare chuckle loose. "Majid, if I were you, I'd have tried to cut my throat ages ago."

Majid rubbed his beard-clad chin. "My honor is foremost and always that of a Helmaj, and it is mine to follow Helmajin Helmaj above all else. Not even my father was able to understand the role as well as you do."

A Helmaji runner ran up, bearing a brown leather briefcase in his left hand. "#The generator and all the attachments are functional,#" he reported in.

"#Good. Majid, see to the preparations. Deploy the anti-aircraft weapons in the cliffs, the mouth, and the exit of the valley. Hinds will have problems making attack runs across anything but the long way. Rally the horses. You, come with me,#" Sonoma ordered, pointing at the man with the briefcase. "#Don't let anyone lay a finger on that case.#"

Sonoma strode past a roaring diesel-powered generator, tended by an engineer and watched by a Helmaj soldier. Numerous 220-volt power cables snaked out of the output plugs, leading into an isolated cavern bored into a cliff face. As he entered the cavern, the _thok_ sounds of powerful theatrical lights kicked an unearthly brightness into the sedimentary rock walls.

"#All is in readiness, Helmajin Helmaj,#" a soldier bearing an old 8mm film camera reported, tightening down screws on a tripod. "We're ready to go whenever you are."

"#Good.#" Sonoma sat on an old metal stool, nodding to the man with the briefcase. The soldier extended the case, and Sonoma set it on the floor of the cavern by his side.

"#We are rolling in five seconds.#"

"#Right. Ready when you are.#" Almost unconsciously, Sonoma ran his hands through his hair.

"#Three... two... one...#"

"Those of you who know me know who I am and that I mean business," he began, looking directly into the old motor-drive camera after the recording reel started to spin. "Those of you who don't know me need some background. I am known as NAPA VALLEY, and I was an operative in a secret organization dedicated to the prevention of international conflict and the preservation of peace. I use the word'peace' lightly because of the times in which we live. Over the years, since the end of the Second World War, the two superpowers, their proxies, and their client states have come to clashes too many times to count. This era, called the 'Cold War,' has seen the deaths of thousands. So many of those are undisclosed as of today. Be it secret nuclear testing on unsuspecting citizens – both in the Soviet Union and in the United States of America – or the continued growth of military industries within both power blocs, our species has been pushing itself to the brink and back for almost forty years now. I've fought in many of these conflicts and seen many of these hellacious atrocities, and little by little, I've lost the few shreds of faith I have left in the human species.

"I now speak from a location in northeast Afghanistan, as yet unconquered by the Soviet Union. I am with a nomadic warrior tribe that refers to themselves as 'Helmaj.' They have no written history to speak of, but oral traditions place them as a band of fighters with roots back to Qin-era China. They have roamed this region of the world since long before the birth of Christ, and as such, they have existed only by conquest. Their culture and language are influenced from all sorts of other warrior peoples; an anthropologist would probably find influences from China, India, Pakistan, the Tadzhik and Kazakh regions, and God only knows where else. Theirs is probably the last surviving warrior culture on this earth that has yet to industrialize. The end result of this is that they have fended off both the Soviet Union and the anti-Soviet _mudjehedeen_ guerillas, who secretly receive supplies from the American CIA. I have cast my lot in with them because I believe that the Helmaj are the purest form of humanity in this world: warriors."

"We, as humans, find it a reflex, an instinct, to fight and compete. Be it for self-improvement, advancement of our own interests, or simply just for some sociopathic drive, fighting is our instinct, while thinking is an act that requires greater dedication. In order to understand each other, sacrifices must be made. Discomfort and misunderstanding must be endured and clarified. As noble as this is..." Sonoma paused, taking a deep breath and sighing. "As noble as this is,it's simply delaying the inevitable. Does understanding come as two superpowers stockpile nuclear weapons? Does it come from a nebulous non-governmental paramilitary group intervening as they see fit? Does it come from selective interference? I say it does not, and it never will come as the status quo progresses."

"The citizens of these countries are basically powerless to effectchange. The status quo, normalcy, or the 'way things are' drives people. The only thing that forces changes is adversity. I say that the time to force that change has come."

Richard reached to his side and opened the lock on the briefcase, pulling out two sets of mechanical blueprints. One was written in Cyrillic, the other in English.

"These are blueprints of a new type of weapon. Unlike what we've seen that drives on the ground, flies in the air, or sails on or under the waves, this 'Arm Slave' is developed by knowledge and skills that are far ahead ofmodern science and the powersthat continue to churn out thousands of destructive weapons every year. This knowledge has been kept a secret from the populace of the world because of its potential for chaos and destruction. The Arm Slave is one of many offshoots that this 'Black Technology' could bring forth. Imagine clean-burning engines that would put an end to the pollution and war caused by oil. Imagine massive networks of computers, connected like electricity and major appliances, sharing information and knowledge freely. Imagine what would happen if this technology, and the money that went towards it, went not towards weapons, but towards education."

"I am now recording these plans and will distribute them to any interested party. Copies have been given to law firms in New York, London, and Cairo to be distributed for reasons I will soon explain. I have also sent them, via postal mail, to figures of religious and local authority in the Warsaw Pact countries, to their underground networks of dissenters. I will make efforts to continue propagating these copies. They will show how these Arm Slaves can be effectively and cheaply built both by governments and non-governmental bodies. If humanity's truest desire is for such destruction, then humanity should have it."

Sonoma put the documents down and leaned into the camera. "The Arm Slave is capable of deployment from any platform: air, land, and sea. It can engage all manner of targets with all manner of weapons, from Gatling guns to tactical and strategic nuclear warheads. It can be equipped with its own specialized suite of weapons or use off-the-shelf components. This was once the secret of the two great powers. Each side currently has their own Arm Slave; the Soviets have developed what is known as the Rachenkov Design Bureau, and their Rk-81 'Scimitar' has its counterpart: the Rockwell M4 Patton."

"Why am I doing this? Simple. This 'Black Technology' is something that would normally be celebrated, were it developed publicly. Scientists would share their designs and ideas so long as information can be freely exchanged. To use technology for the betterment of humanity is what would take the _real_ effort. However, the governments of the United States and the Soviet Union are at continual fault for bringing 'Black Technology' into the underground. They are at fault, and it is time that they suffered."

Sonoma closed the briefcase and held it up. "I have shipped threesimilar briefcases to the three capital cities that control the world today: Washington, D.C.; Brussels, and Moscow. They contain low-yield nuclear weapons, popularly known as neutron bombs. On September 15th, these bombs will already havedetonated, causing a fatal dose of radiation for all living humans within a radius of one mile. They have been planted in the seats of government for America, NATO, and the Warsaw Pact. The survivors of those governments willalso receivecopies of this video. They will know that their failure to make a _real_ advancement for humanity has cost them thousands of lives... and their ill-kept secret."

"We Helmaj may not survive a coming attack by the Soviets. But we will force the world to realize its brutality. If this recording makes it out to the people of the world, now you can see with your own two eyes the weapons, the creatures that have been created to walk in the human image. You can see the destruction that they will reap from that design. Even if you don't believe that an omnipotent being created humans in its image... we have created our own destruction in ours. If this film is suppressed by the powers that be, let it go to show the lengths that governments will go in order to keep the people in line."

"So many great philosophers have said that nothing changes without pain and suffering. Either we as a species must undergo the pain and suffering of putting our animal natures behind us, or we will die by our own hands. That's all I have to say."

Sonoma waited a moment as the cameraman stopped recording and the film roller stopped spinning.

"#We begin the operation at twilight,#" he announced, standing up. "#We'll stop the Soviets and make our escape. We'll establish a foothold here... bring forth the dreams of our homeland, of the Helmaj before us. Sound the horns and prepare for battle.#"

**To be continued...**


	18. The Conception and The Creation

**A/N:** Wow, talk about your insane gaps. The usual suspects were at it again... overworked and under-inspired. Let's see what the weeks ahead have to bring...

Everyone can thank Lakewood for his expeditious response, which enabled the delay to be minimized to my own incompetence. --

On with the show!**

* * *

17: The Conception and The Creation****

* * *

Some distance west of the Helmaj base (Grid Square 45/89) **

17: The Conception and The Creation 

The roaring of the Chelyabinsk diesels had turned the traversing ground into one huge seismic event. Across a ten-kilometer front, almost two hundred tanks and innumerable nimble, heavily-armed scout cars and BMD armored fighting vehicles churned the flat, rocky Afghan steppe with their advance. The sun sinking behind them, the scout cars dashed ahead as the tanks and BMDs stopped, their engines running at high idle.

"Scouting operations have begun, comrade _zampolit,_" a recon battalion captain reported, dashing up to the open rear door of a BMD armored fighting vehicle, heavily adorned with radio antennae. "Current conditions show the wind at two-five-eight at fifteen kilometers. Sunset at 1854 hours, total darkness at 1930."

"Excellent." Colonel Rozhkov accepted the proffered field glasses from the scout captain. He could see the tips of cliff faces just at the edge of the horizon. _Helmaj country,_ he thought. "Comrade General?"

Lieutenant-General Fyodor Sorokin was young for the rank he held. At only forty-four, it was a miracle he was even admitted to the Frunze Military Academy's officer program, let alone graduated fifth in his class. He frowned over a low-scale map of the region, annotated with photos from reconnaissance aircraft. "We can extend our front by another four kilometers by supplementing from our rear-guard troops, comrade _zampolit_," the divisional commander said between pulls on a cheap Polish cigarette. "While I'm always dubious about leaving our artillery exposed, if we have the 45th Motor-Rifle mounted in their vehicles, we can reconfigure any defensive actions that come to pass."

"So let me ask you this, comrade General, why is it that your air defense officer is at the front line right now if our foes possess no aircraft?"

"ZSU-23s are useful as fire-support vehicles, comrade _zampolit_," Sorokin rattled off without missing a beat. "Since the Helmaj have no armor or aircraft, we can use the Shilkas to pin down positions and reach up into dug-in pockets."

Rozhkov poured tea for himself and Sorokin. Their relationship was rare, a divisional commander who didn't hate his _zampolit_ and a _zampolit _who deferred tactical authority to a field officer. There wasn't enough of a KGB presence in Afghanistan for Rozhkov to manage, and most of the troops in the Soviet invasion force were battle-tested enough to earn the _zampolit_'s respect. "I am glad to have you in command for this, Fisha." Rozhkov proffered the general a mug of the strong caravan tea. "It didn't take much to put two and two together when we got that distress signal. I cannot believe that even Andrei Sergeivich would signal after being captured by the Helmaj."

Sorokin sipped at his tea, signing off on a message form. "I want to know where those bandits got a cargo aircraft," he grumbled. "One hour until we start moving. Zorin!" he shouted out the door of the BMD. "Signal 5th Guards to begin their advance behind the scouts. Our time-on-target is 1930 hours!"

A few miles ahead of the Soviet advance, thousands of Helmaj had taken to digging at the mouth of their valley. Foxholes were spaded into the hardened alkali soil of the mountainous region, tank traps were formed with the excess dirt; all with frightening efficiency considering the captured Soviet entrenching shovels and horse-drawn carts.

"They'll start an artillery bombardment before they move in their armor," Sonoma pointed out over his own map of the area. "Likely points will be here, at the entrance to the valley, and as far in the rear area as they can to interdict our logistics coming forward. Our supply lines are all in the caves, so that's no concern, but transporting them will be a problem. Majid, send all horsemen not occupied for the battle to transport detail and get them down with the shell timing. The Soviets will ripple-fire with one shell every 2.7 seconds on a lateral west-east march. They can time between the waves. Hold back the briefcase delivery for now. Recoilless rifle anti-tank crews are going in the cliff faces here, in the north face, and two in the south. Mobile anti-tank crews go two to a horse, and they carry five extra rounds per horse. How are we on the trench?"

Majid trained his binoculars west, squinting from the low sun. "Looks like they're only four feet down and still digging. We have berms being built with the extra dirt, and I doubt that a T-72 can go through that sand without bogging down."

"We've done all we can for planning. Pound into them to aim for the treads. I'm going back to help Kiriko fix things up and ready the Scimitar. Prepare to break camp as soon as we gain the initiative." Sonoma clapped Majid on the shoulder as he mounted his horse, galloping back to the rear area.

Once we stop this attack, we'll relocate north. The Chinese border is only two days' ride. Damn… we'll have to deploy the suitcases out via India. Less security than coming out of Kabul, but we'll have to redistribute the film. Damn! I shouldn't have let those Spetsnaz live…

"Kiriko!" he yelled into the widest cave-mouth. "We're going to be seeing visitors in just a little over an hour!"

He was answered with an angry shout, the crashing of a metal tool on a bigger object, and the spinning-up of a diesel generator.

"We lost the secondary APUs from a voltage mismatch!" Kiriko yelled, emerging from the cave, her face smudged with grease. "I had to reconfigure the whole damn thing and recharge the new ones. It'll be ready in fifteen, twenty minutes, tops."

Sonoma raised an eyebrow. "You think it'll be good for combat?"

Kiriko smiled. "I just told you that it'd be ready in fifteen or twenty minutes."

He nodded. "Get it ready."

_To hell with defending against the Soviets!_

**The Sinai**

Recovery operations had begun in earnest. Two HH-53 Sea Stallions, modified for bulk cargo, had swooped in from the MV _Valley Mistress_, a covert operations vessel,cruising off the southern Israeli coast in the Red Sea. The remaining Arm Slaves had loaded on to a chopper each, but not before the Stallions had delivered two specialized teams.

The MITHRIL demolitions experts had just set time-delay fuses on two heavy thermite satchel charges when Israeli artillery began to fall around them.

_We can't leave yet,_ McAllen thought as he craned his neck towards one of the small porthole windows, blocked by the bulk of the Patton AS. _There's a war going on down there!_

He didn't know that the same thoughts were being echoed by a higher-ranking officer in a C-5 Galaxy orbiting a few hundred miles away, their anger flaring up as huge explosions of superheated thermite napalm obliterated the remains of the Soviet and MITHRIL Arm Slaves.

"Are you sure we have no further theater assets to commit?" General Sachar demanded over a secure radio link. "We're looking at the fifth Persian Gulf war breaking out here! Don't even tell me that the Syrians are going to sit this one out! Five Egyptian divisions are still in the field, and-"

"Andy, we have run out of options," Major-General Shabra's voice echoed over the headset. "IDF sent in their people as soon as I gave them the timetable of our operations. If we push them any further, we risk the Mossad crashing down on all of MITHCENT's field ops, let alone SIGNET RING. I have orders from the Commander himself: we are pulling out of the Sinai Peninsula."

"They're only telling us this now!" Sachar pounded a fist on the metal console of the command aircraft as his teleprinter started chattering out a coded message. "Dammit! What about the missing Soviet Arm Slave? And those Scimitars, what in the living bloody hell were Soviet AS units doing in the field? They even had Soviet markings on them! Bastards certainly aren't exporting them!"

"I'm sorry, Andy. We have our orders."

"Yeah," Sachar grumbled, watching a communications technician begin decoding the message. "Orders." He pressed the DISCONNECT button, throwing off the flight helmet in anger. "Don't tell me: we're pulling out."

"Affirmative, sir," the tech replied. "We're to land Diego Garcia and hold there for the next phase of SIGNET RING."

"Next phase?"

"Yes, sir… it appears that we're returning to Merida."

**The Helmaj base**

"We ride for the Soviets!" Sonoma yelled out, forgetting the Helmaj language for a moment. He kicked his heels into the sides of his horse rapidly, urging the animal forward rapidly through the encampment. #"Abandon all defensive operations and break camp! Arm yourselves and leave everything else behind! We ride to attack the Soviets! Send any remaining women and children to the rear!"#

Majid almost got himself run over as he dashed and grabbed onto the saddle of Sonoma's horse, nimbly leaping onto its back. "Are you mad, sir?" Majid yelled. "We don't have nearly enough of a plan ready to break that division!"

"Look behind you, Majid!" Sonoma yelled over the horse's galloping hooves. Behind him, a scramble of humanity poured into the Helmaj valley as the ragtag soldiers rapidly pulled weapons and horses from protective caves. "Do you see any Frogfoots or Hinds circling us? Do you see artillery and rockets falling yet? If we fight on their terms, we will be wiped out and forced to retreat. But if we strike while they prepare, we can execute the greatest guerilla tactic ever practiced and keep pushing _south!_"

Sonoma's adjutant was silent. "So Helmajin Helmaj intends to undertake the destruction of this entire reinforced armored division?"

Sonoma yelled an alert a few more times before responding. "I am saying, Majid, that it is high time I practiced what I've preached. I need our men to follow me for this one attack alone."

He didn't even need to hear Majid's acknowledgement. The older man leapt off the horse, skidded on his feet, and rushed over to his own steed to relay the orders.

Kalinin had already helped his injured sergeant to his feet, having fashioned a meager splint. In the sudden rush and chaos, the Soviets knew a chance when they saw one.

"Going somewhere?"

Sonoma reared his horse to a stop in front of the Soviets' tent. He didn't even need to open the flap to know what they would be thinking.

"Your people are here, and we're going to destroy them," Sonoma pronounced, almost solemnly. "If you're not here when I get back, you'll be just another bunch of Soviet soldiers to me and my people."

"If we are still here?" Kalinin replied.

"Then you'll all be one of us. Soldiers for life. Helmaj. The Soviet Union may have trained and supported you, but 'to each according to his need, from each according to his ability' won't work unless everyone wants in on it. You can go back to the Soviet Union… or you can have true communism in your lifetime."

Sonoma ran off in a gallop of hooves. He didn't see the tall black man in nondescript fatigues peek out at him from behind a rock.

#"Helmajin Helmaj leads us to war!"#

#"We go to destroy the Soviets!"#

"_Helmajin tarook!_"

**Konduz base**

The four-plane formation of stocky, stout Su-25 Frogfoot attack fighters screeched low over the ground base, heading east. They had only twenty minutes' flight time to reach their patrol station.

**The Helmaj base**

The guard had reacted like anyone would: he heard a sudden, sharp noise coming from behind him and to the right. Turning to look, he only saw the captured MITHRIL agent. Turning back, he saw a blur of motion almost a half-second too late.

"Sure took you long enough," Kenji barked at Mark as the tall agent took the fallen guard's gun. "Nice to know you still remember what I taught you about pressure points."

"Ain't no time to chat, my man. Shit's going down out there. There's a Soviet division that thinks it's gonna attack the Helmaj. It's the other way around right now." Mark patted down the guard and found a set of keys in his pocket.

"So let me guess… we're going to fight our way out of this?"

"Horseshit. There's clear terrain to the east. We're getting' outta here and waiting on this. They left behind all kinds of useful stuff. Food, water, tents, horses… they're breaking camp like they ain't coming back!"

"Doesn't surprise me, but I'm not leaving."

"Kenji, you dumb son of a bitch." Mark shook his head, holding up the keys he took from the guard. "You gonna go after NAPA VALLEY, huh? You gonna take him down like nobody else could? You gonna succeed where at least five MITHRIL search squads couldn't? Guess I gotta leave you locked up here for your own safety."

"Goddammit, Mark!" Kenji shouted suddenly. "What the hell else do I have to do with my life? How much more can I just keep going on being a soldier? I joined MITHRIL to rid the world of NAPA VALLEY and scum like him! If you're not going to help me, then fine, go ahead and abandon me here! Leave me to my fate in this cave! You can go off and watch, then steal a horse or something and get through a country full of Soviets, if only to report back on what happened here! Go ahead and ignore the Kabul operation, ignore Cambodia, ignore that beer I owe you! Ignore the beer that ignited all this!"

Mark stared his friend down. "You're tellin' me that when we ain't got orders, backup, or even a gun for each of us, you wanna go out there and kick some ass. Damn fool Japanese, I ain't never gonna understand you samurai types."

Mark knelt down to unlock the chains that bound Kenji to the chair in the cave. The jangling had drowned out the _kachik_ of a pistol being cocked behind them. They didn't hear the footsteps until it was too late, when a tall female figure had lifted a gun to Mark's head.

"I'm sorry, boys, but the line ends here," Gefen ben Lebedov said apologetically.

"So there she is," Mark joked. "Not often you get to say hi to a traitor."

"To MITHRIL, yes, I would be branded a traitor, if they were to find me again," Gef replied, pressing the gun upwards against Mark's skull. He dropped the AK that he had taken from the guard, raising his hands. "But if I am a traitor to a failing agency, I am a loyal soldier for peace."

"Gef, listen to me," Kenji explained calmly. "NAPA VALLEY is a murderer. He's killed innocent civlians in cold blood simply because of MITHRIL's orders and intentions. He-"

"He is far ahead of whatever MITHRIL intends to do with this world," Gef cut him off as she patted Mark down for weapons. "I've seen enough war and it's time to end it."

"Look outside this cave, Gef. People are getting ready to stir some serious shit up! They're gonna get killed going after a Soviet armored division!"

**Grid Square 45/89**

"We have forward scouts dug in reporting movement in the valley."

The Soviet commanders observed their operations staffers reposition unit markers on the area map that was unfolded in front of them. A wall of red double-X markers, each indicating a Soviet armored regiment, backed with four red X-V markers to represent artillery, stared down four green slashed-circle markers. Over 8,000 troops with hundreds of tanks, artillery rockets and cannons, and air support were staring down about 1,000 guerilla soldiers.

"Identify the movement," General Sorokin ordered.

"The scouts report that there's movement consistent with building defenses. Earthworks are going up, and beyond that, we have no ability to see in."

"Digging in, eh? Very well. Let's move things up a little bit. Comrade _zampolit?_"

"As much as I dislike the idea of firing on an area where our own people may be hiding, I have all faith in comrade Kalinin to come through this unscathed. Go ahead, comrade General."

**The Helmaj base**

The high-explosive rockets landed almost silently, flying at a subsonic velocity and thus not creating the ripping sound of faster artillery projectiles. Most were off-target, impacting on the walls of the valley's cliff faces, but their landing threw the Helmaj rear area into chaos. The exploding warheads blew fragments, stones, and boulders free, which then rained and tumbled across great swaths. Groups of Helmaj were cut down, most by shrapnel cuts and wounds, but several died instantly under out-of-control boulder falls and rockslides.

#"The Soviets have begun their attack!"# a Helmaj, his once-handsome Eurasian face marred by several scars, reported to Majid as he dashed up from the rear. #"We're under rocket and artillery fire from their rear!"#

#"Get everyone who hasn't evacuated into the caverns to the north. Detail a troop to escort them to safety, and then get them back over the Chinese border. We'll send for them when this clears out. Take only what you have and acquire as you move. Go!"# Majid turned his horse and spurred him on just as three 155mm artillery rounds exploded behind his position.

The horse fell from the concussion and desperately tried to bring itself back to its feet. Majid picked himself up from the hard ground, swore as he found blood dripping from a cut on his forehead, and drew up an AK-47 from a fallen Helmaj a few feet behind him. "I am sorry," he said to the horse, whinnying from an invisible wound. With that, he drew the rifle to bear and fired a round through the animal's head, putting it out of its painful misery.

"I saw the explosions," Sonoma called out to Majid from a few feet away on his own horse. "Take mine and go to the front. Begin the attack with what we have in place. I'm going to help Kiriko."

"You should take this," Majid reached into his garments and withdrew a larger version of a Helmaj dagger. "If the time comes, wield it in battle and we will rally to you."

"This is the first time fighting with my own men," Sonoma reflected between artillery blasts. "I never thought it'd be in such a place."

With that, NAPA VALLEY galloped to the large cavern where his wife was working.

**The mouth of the valley**

#"Helmaj! Advance!"#

The battle call was punctuated with the blowing of a ram's horn, the harsh tone echoing throughout the valley. The horn-blower raced through the valley on the back of a stolen Soviet UAZ jeep, its driver skillfully dodging craters and exploding Soviet artillery rounds. Through every explosion, the UAZ made a loop around the valley, doing nothing but blowing the spiral battle horn, calling the Helmaj to race out the valley as fast as they could.

The Helmaj army poured out of the mouth of the valley, line abreast on horseback, dashing across the rocky alkali westward towards the Soviet forces.

**Grid Square 45/89**

"The artillery has flushed the Helmaj out! Forward scouts are reporting that Helmaj horsemen are on the move!"

"Looks like they're not giving in so easily. Send the 114th Infantry forward to this point," Sorokin gestured to a forward position on the map. "Then flank them with 208th Tanks and 79th Motorized. We'll create a funnel and have artillery pound their escape route to the rear. Air support will come in from our Frontal Aviation comrades in –" Sorokin checked his watch – "seven minutes. Continue the bombardment and fire for effect as they advance."

The Helmaj charge took the forward scouts by surprise, but only tactically. The BRDM scout cars and UAZ-mounted infantry were quickly able to train their guns on the horde of Helmaj.

A BRDM opened fire first. Its turret-mounted .50-caliber machine gun let loose a barrage of tracer rounds, their phosphorous glow resplendent in the Afghan twilight. The bright tracers streaked out and cut through the Helmaj ranks as they raced closer and closer, towards the bright setting sun and the Soviet ranks.

"11th Scouts is under direct attack. The advance is slowing, but they are still coming strong. Force size and count is negative at this time."

"What about our flanks?" Sorokin looked up from a radio.

"Moving into position, comrade General!"

The pocket of Soviet scouts held their ground, firing controlled bursts into the Helmaj riders, who jinked left and right unpredictably, bringing their own weapons to bear. RPGs and grenades crashed into the Soviet positions from soldiers who appeared and disappeared, weaving amongst dust clouds, flying bullets, and other riders. One Soviet foxhole, then another, was silenced as the Helmaj started to encircle the position as artillery fell behind them.

#"There! That one!"# a call went out as a Soviet BRDM started to back up, its diesel engine straining under power. Two Helmaj riders leapt off of their horses and fired shots inside the open air vents of the scout car, stopping it in its tracks. They threw the outer hatch open and tossed out the two dead Soviet soldiers inside it, commandeering the vehicle. The turreted machine gun immediately rotated around to the rest of the Soviet ranks, firing on the frantic defenders.

"Comrade General, we have lost contact with 11th Scouts. Their last report was that vehicle seventeen was commencing a strategic withdrawal."

"Raise them on the backup. Where are the 18th Airborne?"

"En route, sir; ETA ten minutes."

"Good. Let's see how our comrades in the helicopters handle these savages."

**The Helmaj base**

It was a chastened Richard Sonoma that remained in the valley,jogging past the rows of fallen rocks and bodies. _I should be out there,_ he thought. _I came in and assumed leadership years ago, then they go off to fight just because I order. How loyal these Helmaj are!_

The whine of a diesel generator throttled down in the distance, replaced by the low, continuous _thrum_ of a gas turbine engine spinning up. The sound brought a smile to Sonoma's face.

"Ready to go?" he asked into a portable radio unclipped from his belt.

With a thunderous crash, an armored fist punched its way through the cave wall behind him. A mighty heave of reinforced metal arms, bundled with hydraulic piping and circuitry akin to the muscles of a body builder, threw the Rk-81 "Scimitar" Arm Slave out of the cave in which it had resided. Unlike the bare-skinned ones that had ravaged MITHRIL in the Sinai not a few hours ago, this Scimitar had been repainted a dark, metallic blue that blended in with the darkening night sky. Its optical sensors glowed a subdued red, and several mounted machine guns and rocket launchers adorned its reinforced body.

"I'm ready!" Kiriko's voice crackled over the radio. The Arm Slave gave as best a thumbs-up as it could with its three-fingered hand. "Let's take the fight to the Soviets!"

TO BE CONTINUED…


End file.
